BEAUTY FOR AMERICA
Proceedings of the
White House Conference
on Natural Beauty
WASHINGTON, D.C.
MAY 24-25, 1965
From the collection of the
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BEAUTY FOR AMERICA
The Call of the President
The Transcript of the Conference
Reports of the Panel Chairmen
The Response of the President
Proceedings of the
White House Conference on Natural Beauty
WASHINGTON, D.G.
MAY 24-25, 1965
Library of Congress
Catalog Card Number: 65-65700
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICB
WASHINGTON, D.C. : 1965
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
Washington, D.C., 20402 - Price $2.75 (paper)
These proceedings present the edited and in some cases revised
transcript of the White House Conference on Natural Beauty, which
was held in Washington, B.C., May 24 and 25, 1965. Also in-
cluded in the volume are the action recommendations of the Con-
ference, President Johnson's address to the Congress of February 8,
1965, and a number of additional statements submitted for the rec-
ord by participants.
The conference program consisted of two general sessions, 15
individual panel meetings, an open meeting of the Recreation Ad-
visory Council, and a final session addressed by President Johnson.
All meetings were held in the auditoriums of the State Department
and the Civil Service Commission except for the last, which was held
in the East Room of the White House.
The conference was attended by some 800 delegates and an ad-
ditional number of observers. A single consolidated directory of
the delegates and other participants is presented in an appendix to
this volume.
m
Contents
Chapter Page
1 The Conference Gall: The President's Message to the
Congress 1
2 The General Session: Remarks of Mrs. Johnson and
Mr. Rockefeller 17
3 The Recreation Advisory Council: An Open Meeting. . 23
The 15 Conference Panels:
4 The Federal-State-Local Partnership 43
5 The Townscape 75
6 Parks and Open Spaces Ill
7 Water and Waterfronts 141
8 The Design of the Highway 177
9 Scenic Roads and Parkways 213
10 Roadside Control 249
11 The Farm Landscape 281
12 Reclamation of the Landscape 31 5
13 The Underground Installation of Utilities 359
14 Automobile Junkyards 403
15 The New Suburbia 439
16 Landscape Action Program 469
17 Education 507
18 Citizen Action 559
19 Further Statements Submitted for the Record 593
20 Reports of the Panel Chairmen 631
21 Response of the President 675
Appendix: Organization of the Conference 687
Conference Directory and Nominal Index 693
Topical Index 757
CHAPTER 1
THE CONFERENCE CALL
(Message from the President of the United States to the Congress,
February 8, 1965)
For centuries Americans have drawn strength and inspiration
from the beauty of our country. It would be a neglectful generation
indeed, indifferent alike to the judgment of history and the command
of principle, which failed to preserve and extend such a heritage for
its descendants.
Yet the storm of modern change is threatening to blight and dimin-
ish in a few decades what has been cherished and protected for
generations.
A growing population is swallowing up areas of natural beauty
with its demands for living space, and is placing increased demand on
our overburdened areas of recreation and pleasure.
The increasing tempo of urbanization and growth is already
depriving many Americans of the right to live in decent surroundings.
More of our people are crowding into cities and being cut off from
nature. Cities themselves reach out into the countryside, destroying
streams and trees and meadows as they go. A modern highway may
wipe out the equivalent of a 50-acre park with every mile. And
people move out from the city to get closer to nature only to find
that nature has moved farther from them.
The modern technology which has added much to our lives can
also have a darker side. Its uncontrolled waste products are menac-
ing the world we live in, our enjoyment and our health. The air we
breathe, our water, our soil and wildlife, are being blighted by the
poisons and chemicals which are the byproducts of technology and
industry. The skeletons of discarded cars litter the countryside.
The same society which receives the rewards of technology, must,
as a cooperating whole, take responsibility for control.
To deal with these new problems will require a new conservation.
We must not only protect the countryside and save it from destruc-
2 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
tion, we must restore what has been destroyed and salvage the beauty
and charm of our cities. Our conservation must be not just the
classic conservation of protection and development, but a creative
conservation of restoration and innovation. Its concern is not with
nature alone, but with the total relation between man and the world
around him. Its object is not just man's welfare, but the dignity of
man's spirit.
In this conservation the protection and enhancement of man's
opportunity to be in contact with beauty must play a major role.
This means that beauty must not be just a holiday treat, but a part
of our daily life. It means not just easy physical access, but equal
social access for rich and poor, Negro and white, city dweller and
farmer.
Beauty is not an easy thing to measure. It does not show up in
the gross national product, in a weekly paycheck, or in profit and
loss statements. But these things are not ends in themselves. They
are a road to satisfaction and pleasure and the good life. Beauty
makes its own direct contribution to these final ends. Therefore it
is one of the most important components of our true national income,
not to be left out simply because statisticians cannot calculate its
worth.
And some things we do know. Association with beauty can en-
large man's imagination and revive his spirit. Ugliness can demean
the people who live among it. What a citizen sees every day is his
America. If it is attractive it adds to the quality of his life. If it is
ugly it can degrade his existence.
Beauty has other immediate values. It adds to safety whether
removing direct dangers to health or making highways less monot-
onous and dangerous. We also know that those who live in blighted
and squalid conditions are more susceptible to anxieties and mental
disease.
Ugliness is costly. It can be expensive to clean a soot-smeared
building, or to build new areas of recreation when the old landscape
could have been preserved far more cheaply.
Certainly no one would hazard a national definition of beauty.
But we do know that nature is nearly always beautiful. We do, for
the most part, know what is ugly. And we can introduce, into all our
planning, our programs, our building, and our growth, a conscious
and active concern for the values of beauty. If we do this then
we can be successful in preserving a beautiful America.
THE CONFERENCE GALL 3
There is much the Federal Government can do, through a range
of specific programs, and as a force for public education. But a beau-
tiful America will require the effort of government at every level, of
business, and of private groups. Above all it will require the concern
and action of individual citizens, alert to danger, determined to im-
prove the quality of their surroundings, resisting blight, demanding
and building beauty for themselves and their children.
I am hopeful that we can summon such a national effort. For we
have not chosen to have an ugly America. We have been careless,
and often neglectful. But now that the danger is clear and the hour
is late this people can place themselves in the path of a tide of blight
which is often irreversible and always destructive.
The Congress and the executive branch have each produced con-
servation giants in the past. During the 88th Congress it was legis-
lative-executive teamwork that brought progress. It is this same
kind of partnership that will insure our continued progress.
In that spirit as a beginning and stimulus I make the following
proposals :
The Cities
Thomas Jefferson wrote that communities should be planned with
an eye to the effect made upon the human spirit by being continually
surrounded with a maximum of beauty.
We have often sadly neglected this advice in the modern American
city. Yet this is where most of our people live. It is where the
character of our young is formed. It is where American civilization
will be increasingly concentrated in years to come.
Such a challenge will not be met with a few more parks or play-
grounds. It requires attention to the architecture of building, the
structure of our roads, preservation of historical buildings and monu-
ments, careful planning of new suburbs. A concern for the enhance-
ment of beauty must infuse every aspect of the growth and develop-
ment of metropolitan areas. It must be a principal responsibility
of local government, supported by active and concerned citizens.
Federal assistance can be a valuable stimulus and help to such
local efforts.
I have recommended a community extension program which will
bring the resources of the university to focus on problems of the
community just as they have long been concerned with our rural
areas. Among other things, this program will help provide training
4 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
and technical assistance to aid in making our communities more
attractive and vital. In addition, under the Housing Act of 1964,
grants will be made to States for training of local governmental
employees needed for community development. I am recommending
a 1965 supplemental appropriation to implement this program.
We now have two programs which can be of special help in creat-
ing areas of recreation and beauty for our metropolitan area popula-
tion : the open space land program and the land and water conserva-
tion fund.
I have already proposed full funding of the land and water conser-
vation fund, and directed the Secretary of the Interior to give priority
attention to serving the needs of our growing urban population.
The primary purpose of the open space program has been to help
acquire and assure open spaces in urban areas. I propose a series of
new matching grants for improving the natural beauty of urban open
space.
The open space program should be adequately financed, and
broadened by permitting grants to be made to help city governments
acquire and clear areas to create small parks, squares, pedestrian
malls, and playgrounds.
In addition I will request authority in this program for a matching
program to cities for landscaping, installation of outdoor lights and
benches, creating attractive cityscapes along roads and in business
areas, and for other beautification purposes.
Our city parks have not, in many cases, realized their full potential
as sources of pleasure and play. I recommend on a matching basis a
series of Federal demonstration projects in city parks to use the best
thought and action to show how the appearance of these parks can
better serve the people of our towns and metropolitan areas.
All of these programs should be operated on the same matching
formula to avoid unnecessary competition among programs and
increase the possibility of cooperative effort. I will propose such a
standard formula.
In a future message on the cities I will recommend other changes in
our housing programs designed to strengthen the sense of community
of which natural beauty is an important component.
In almost every part of the country citizens are rallying to save
landmarks of beauty and history. The government must also do its
share to assist these local efforts which have an important national
purpose. We will encourage and support the National Trust for
THE CONFERENCE GALL 5
Historic Preservation in the United States, chartered by Congress in
1949. I shall propose legislation to authorize supplementary grants
to help local authorities acquire, develop, and manage private prop-
erties for such purposes.
The Registry of National Historic Landmarks is a fine Federal
program with virtually no Federal cost. I commend its work and
the new wave of interest it has evoked in historical preservation.
The Countryside
Our present system of parks, seashores, and recreation areas
monuments to the dedication and labor of farsighted men do not
meet the needs of a growing population.
The full funding of the Land and Water Conservation Fund will
be an important step in making this a Parks-for-America decade.
I propose to use this fund to acquire lands needed to establish
Assateague Island National Seashore, Md.-Va.
Tocks Island National Recreation Area, N.J.-Pa.
Cape Lookout National Seashore, N.C.
Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, Mich.
Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, Ind.
Oregon Dunes National Seashore, Oreg.
Great Basin National Park, Nev.
Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Tex.
Spruce Knob, Seneca Rocks National Recreation Area, W. Va.
Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area, Mont.-Wyo.
Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area, Utah-Wyo.
Whiskeytown-Shasta-Trinity National Recreation Area, Calif.
In addition, I have requested the Secretary of the Interior, work-
ing with interested groups, to conduct a study on the desirability of
establishing a Redwoods National Park in California.
I will also recommend that we add prime outdoor recreation areas
to our national forest system, particularly in the populous East; and
proceed on schedule with studies required to define and enlarge the
Wilderness System established by the 88th Congress. We will also
continue progress on our refuge system for migratory waterfowl.
Faulty strip and surface mining practices have left ugly scars which
mar the beauty of the landscape in many of our States. I urge your
strong support of the nationwide strip and surface mining study pro-
vided by the Appalachian regional legislation, which will furnish the
6 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
factual basis for a fair and reasonable approach to the correction of
these past errors.
I am asking the Secretary of Agriculture to work with State and
local organizations in developing a cooperative program for improv-
ing the beauty of the privately owned rural lands which comprise
three-fourths of the Nation's area. Much can be done within existing
Department of Agriculture programs without adding to cost.
The 28 million acres of land presently held and used by our armed
services is an important part of our public estate. Many thousands
of these acres will soon become surplus to military needs. Much of
this land has great potential for outdoor recreation, wildlife, and con-
servation uses consistent with military requirements. This potential
must be realized through the fullest application of multiple-use
principles. To this end I have directed the Secretaries of Defense
and Interior to conduct a "conservation inventory" of all surplus
lands.
Highways
More than any country ours is an automobile society. For most
Americans the automobile is a principal instrument of transportation,
work, daily activity, recreation, and pleasure. By making our roads
highways to the enjoyment of nature and beauty we can greatly
enrich the lives of nearly all our people in city and countryside alike.
Our task is twofold. First, to insure that roads themselves are
not destructive of nature and natural beauty. Second, to make our
roads ways to recreation and pleasure.
I have asked the Secretary of Commerce to take a series of steps
designed to meet this objective. This includes requiring landscaping
on all Federal interstate primary and urban highways, encouraging
the construction of rest and recreation areas along highways, and the
preservation of natural beauty adjacent to highway rights-of-way.
Our present highway law permits the use of up to 3 percent of all
Federal-aid funds to be used without matching for the preservation
of natural beauty. This authority has not been used for the purpose
intended by Congress. I will take steps, including recommended
legislation if necessary, to make sure these funds are, in fact, used to
enhance beauty along our highway system. This will dedicate sub-
stantial resources to this purpose.
I will also recommend that a portion of the funds now used for
secondary roads be set aside in order to provide access to areas of
THE CONFERENCE CALL 7
rest and recreation and scenic beauty along our Nation's roads, and
for rerouting or construction of highways for scenic or parkway
purposes.
The Recreation Advisory Council is now completing a study of the
role which scenic roads and parkways should play in meeting our
highway and recreation needs. After receiving the report, I will make
appropriate recommendations.
The authority for the existing program of outdoor advertising con-
trol expires on June 30, 1965, and its provisions have not been effec-
tive in achieving the desired goal. Accordingly, I will recommend
legislation to insure effective control of billboards along our highways.
In addition, we need urgently to work toward the elimination or
screening of unsightly, beauty-destroying junkyards and auto grave-
yards along our highways. To this end, I will also recommend neces-
sary legislation to achieve effective control, including Federal assist-
ance in appropriate cases where necessary.
I hope that, at all levels of government, our planners and builders
will remember that highway beautification is more than a matter of
planting trees or setting aside scenic areas. The roads themselves
must reflect, in location and design, increased respect for the natural
and social integrity and unity of the landscape and communities
through which they pass.
Rivers
Those who first settled this continent found much to marvel at.
Nothing was a greater source of wonder and amazement than the
power and majesty of American rivers. They occupy a central place
in myth and legend, folklore and literature.
They were our first highways, and some remain among the most
important. We have had to control their ravages, harness their
power, and use their water to help make whole regions prosper.
Yet even this seemingly indestructible natural resource is in danger.
Through our pollution control programs we can do much to restore
our rivers. We will continue to conserve the water and power for
tomorrow's needs with well-planned reservoirs and power dams.
But the time has also come to identify and preserve free-flowing
stretches of our great scenic rivers before growth and development
make the beauty of the unspoiled waterway a memory.
To this end I will shortly send to Congress a bill to establish a
national wild rivers system.
8 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
The Potomac
The river rich in history and memory which flows by our Nation's
Capital should serve as a model of scenic and recreation values for
the entire country. To meet this objective I am asking the Secretary
of the Interior to review the Potomac River Basin development plan
now under review by the Chief of Army Engineers, and to work with
the affected States and local governments, the District of Columbia,
and interested Federal agencies to prepare a program for my
consideration.
A program must be devised which will
(a) Clean up the river and keep it clean, so it can be used for
boating, swimming, and fishing;
( b ) Protect its natural beauties by the acquisition of scenic ease-
ments, zoning, or other measures;
( c ) Provide adequate recreational facilities ; and
(d) Complete the presently authorized George Washington
Memorial Parkway on both banks.
I hope action here will stimulate and inspire similar efforts by
State and local governments on other urban rivers and waterfronts,
such as the Hudson in New York. They are potentially the greatest
single source of pleasure for those who live in most of our metropolitan
areas.
Trails
The forgotten outdoorsmen of today are those who like to walk,
hike, ride horseback, or bicycle. For them we must have trails as
well as highways. Nor should motor vehicles be permitted to tyran-
nize the more leisurely human traffic.
Old and young alike can participate. Our doctors recommend
and encourage such activity for fitness and fun.
I am requesting, therefore, that the Secretary of the Interior work
with his colleagues in the Federal Government and with State and
local leaders and recommend to me a cooperative program to en-
courage a national system of trails, building up the more than hun-
dred thousand miles of trails in our national forests and parks.
There are many new and exciting trail projects underway across
the land. In Arizona, a county has arranged for miles of irrigation
canal banks to be used by riders and hikers. In Illinois, an aban-
THE CONFERENCE GALL 9
doned railroad right-of-way is being developed as a "Prairie Path."
In Mexico utility rights-of-way are used as public trails.
As with so much of our quest for beauty and quality, each com-
munity has opportunities for action. We can and should have an
abundance of trails for walking, cycling, and horseback riding, in
and close to our cities. In the back country we need to copy the
great Appalachian Trail in all parts of America, and to make full
use of rights-of-way and other public paths.
Pollution
One aspect of the advance of civilization is the evolution of respon-
sibility for disposal of waste. Over many generations society grad-
ually developed techniques for this purpose. State and local govern-
ments, landlords and private citizens have been held responsible for
insuring that sewage and garbage did not menace health or con-
taminate the environment.
In the last few decades entire new categories of waste have come
to plague and menace the American scene. These are the tech-
nological wastes the byproducts of growth, industry, agriculture,
and science. We cannot wait for slow evolution over generations to
deal with them.
Pollution is growing at a rapid rate. Some pollutants are known
to be harmful to health, while the effect of others is uncertain and
unknown. In some cases we can control pollution with a larger
effort. For other forms of pollution we still do not have effective
means of control.
Pollution destroys beauty and menaces health. It cuts down on
efficiency, reduces property values, and raises taxes.
The longer we wait to act, the greater the dangers and the larger
the problem.
Large-scale pollution of air and waterways is no respecter of
political boundaries, and its effects extend far beyond those who
cause it.
Air pollution is no longer confined to isolated places. This genera-
tion has altered the composition of the atmosphere on a global scale
through radioactive materials and a steady increase in carbon dioxide
from the burning of fossil fuels. Entire regional airsheds, crop plant
environments, and river basins are heavy with noxious materials.
Motor vehicles and home heating plants, municipal dumps, and
factories continually hurl pollutants into the air we breathe. Each
10 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
day almost 50,000 tons of unpleasant, and sometimes poisonous,
sulfur dioxide are added to the atmosphere, and our automobiles
produce almost 300,000 tons of other pollutants.
In Donora, Pa., in 1948, and New York City in 1953, serious
illness and some deaths were produced by sharp increases in air
pollution. In New Orleans, epidemic outbreaks of asthmatic attacks
are associated with air pollutants. Three-fourths of the 8 million
people in the Los Angeles area are annoyed by severe eye irritation
much of the year. And our health authorities are increasingly con-
cerned with the damaging effects of the continual breathing of pol-
luted air by all our people in every city in the country.
In addition to its health effects, air pollution creates filth and
gloom and depreciates property values of entire neighborhoods. The
White House itself is being dirtied with soot from polluted air.
Every major river system is now polluted. Waterways that were
once sources of pleasure and beauty and recreation are forbidden to
human contact and objectionable to sight and smell. Furthermore,
this pollution is costly, requiring expensive treatment for drinking
water and inhibiting the operation and growth of industry.
In spite of the efforts and many accomplishments of the past,
water pollution is spreading. And new kinds of problems are being
added to the old :
Waterborne viruses, particularly hepatitis, are replacing typhoid
fever as a significant health hazard.
Mass deaths of fish have occurred in rivers overburdened with
wastes.
Some of our rivers contain chemicals which, in concentrated form,
produce abnormalities in animals.
Last summer 2,600 square miles of Lake Erie over a quarter
of the entire lake were almost without oxygen and unable to sup-
port life because of algae and plant growths, fed by pollution from
cities and farms.
In many older cities storm drains and sanitary sewers are inter-
connected. As a result, mixtures of storm water and sanitary waste
overflow during rains and discharge directly into streams, bypassing
treatment works and causing heavy pollution.
In addition to our air and water we must, each and every day,
dispose of a half billion pounds of solid waste. These wastes from
discarded cans to discarded automobiles litter our country, harbor
THE CONFERENCE GALL 11
vermin, and menace our health. Inefficient and improper methods
of disposal increase pollution of our air and streams.
Almost all these wastes and pollutions are the result of activities
carried on for the benefit of man. A prime national goal must be
an environment that is pleasing to the senses and healthy to live in.
Our Government is already doing much in this field. We have
made significant progress. But more must be done.
Federal Government activity
I am directing the heads of all agencies to improve measures to
abate pollution by direct agency operation, contracts and coopera-
tive agreements. Federal procurement practices must make sure
that the Government equipment uses the most effective techniques
for controlling pollution. The Administrator of General Services
has already taken steps to assure that motor vehicles purchased by
the Federal Government meet minimum standards of exhaust
quality.
Clean water
Enforcement authority must be strengthened to provide positive
controls over the discharge of pollutants into our interstate or naviga-
ble waters. I recommend enactment of legislation to
Provide, through the setting of effective water quality standards,
combined with a swift and effective enforcement procedure, a na-
tional program to prevent water pollution at its source rather than
attempting to cure pollution after it occurs.
Increase project grant ceilings and provide additional incentives
for multimunicipal projects under the waste-treatment facilities con-
struction program.
Increase the ceilings for grants to State water pollution control
programs.
Provide a new research and demonstration construction program
leading to the solution of problems caused by the mixing of storm
water runoff and sanitary wastes.
The Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare will undertake
an intensive program to clean up the Nation's most polluted rivers.
With the cooperation of States and cities using the tools of regula-
tion, grant, and incentives we can bring the most serious problem
of river pollution under control. We cannot afford to do less.
We will work with Canada to develop a pollution control program
for the Great Lakes and other border waters.
779-59565 2
12 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
Through an expanded program carried on by the Departments of
Health, Education, and Welfare and Interior, we will continue to
seek effective and economical methods for controlling pollution from
acid mine drainage.
To improve the quality of our waters will require the fullest co-
operation of our State and local governments. Working together,
we can and will preserve and increase one of our most valuable
national resources clean water.
Clean air
The enactment of the Clean Air Act in December of 1963 repre-
sented a long step forward in our ability to understand and control
the difficult problem of air pollution. The 1966 budget request of
$24 million is almost double the amount spent on air pollution pro-
grams in the year prior to its enactment.
In addition, the Clean Air Act should be improved to permit the
Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare to investigate potential
air pollution problems before pollution happens, rather than having
to wait until the damage occurs, as is now the case, and to make
recommendations leading to the prevention of such pollution.
One of the principal unchecked sources of air pollution is the auto-
mobile. I intend to institute discussions with industry officials and
other interested groups leading to an effective elimination or sub-
stantial reduction of pollution from liquid-fueled motor vehicles.
Solid wastes
Continuing technological progress and improvement in methods
of manufacture, packaging, and marketing of consumer products
have resulted in an ever-mounting increase of discarded material.
We need to seek better solutions to the disposal of these wastes. I
recommend legislation to
Assist the States in developing comprehensive programs for some
forms of solid waste disposal.
Provide for research and demonstration projects leading to more
effective methods for disposing of or salvaging solid wastes.
Launch a concentrated attack on the accumulation of junk cars
by increasing research in the Department of Interior leading to use
of metal from scrap cars where promising leads already exist.
Pesticides
Pesticides may affect living organisms wherever they occur.
THE CONFERENCE CALL 13
In order that we may better understand the effects of these com-
pounds, I have included increased funds in the budget for use by
the Secretaries of Agriculture, Interior, and Health, Education, and
Welfare to increase their research efforts on pesticides so they can
give special attention to the flow of pesticides through the environ-
ment; study the means by which pesticides break down and disappear
in nature; and to keep a constant check on the level of pesticides
in our water, air, soil, and food supply.
I am recommending additional funds for the Secretary of Agricul-
ture to reduce contamination from toxic chemicals through intensified
research, regulatory control, and educational programs.
The Secretary of Agriculture will soon submit legislation to tighten
control over the manufacture and use of agricultural chemicals, in-
cluding licensing and factory inspection of manufacturers, clearly
placing the burden of proof of safety on the proponent of the chemical
rather than on the Government.
Research resources
Our needs for new knowledge and increasing application of exist-
ing knowledge demand a greater supply of trained manpower and
research resources.
A National Center for Environmental Health Sciences is being
planned as a focal point for health research in this field. In addition,
the 1966 budget includes funds for the establishment of university
institutes to conduct research and training in environmental pollution
problems.
Legislation recommended in my message on health has been intro-
duced to increase Federal support for specialized research facilities of
a national or regional character. This proposal, aimed at health re-
search needs generally, would assist in the solution of environmental
health problems and I urge its passage.
We need legislation to provide to the Departments of Agriculture
and Interior authority for grants for research in environmental pollu-
tion control in their areas of responsibility. I have asked the Secre-
tary of Interior to submit legislation to eliminate the ceiling on
pesticide research.
Other efforts
In addition to these needed actions, other proposals are under-
going active study.
14 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
I have directed the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers,
with the appropriate departments, to study the use of economic in-
centives as a technique to stimulate pollution prevention and abate-
ment, and to recommend actions or legislation, if needed.
I have instructed the Director of the Bureau of the Budget and the
Director of the Office of Science and Technology to explore the ade-
quacy of the present organization of pollution control and research
activities.
I have also asked the Director of the Office of Science and Tech-
nology and the Director of the Bureau of the Budget to recommend
the best way in which the Federal Government may direct efforts
toward advancing our scientific understanding of natural plant and
animal communities and their interaction with man and his activities.
The actions and proposals recommended in this message will take
us a long way toward immediate reversal of the increase of pollutants
in our environment. They will also give us time until new basic
knowledge and trained manpower provide opportunities for more
dramatic gains in the future.
White House Conference
I intend to call a White House Conference on Natural Beauty to
meet in mid-May of this year. Its chairman will be Mr. Laurance
Rockefeller.
It is my hope that this conference will produce new ideas and ap-
proaches for enhancing the beauty of America. Its scope will not be
restricted to Federal action. It will look for ways to help and en-
courage State and local governments, institutions, and private citizens
in their own efforts. It can serve as a focal point for the large cam-
paign of public education which is needed to alert Americans to the
danger to their natural heritage and to the need for action.
In addition to other subjects which this conference will consider,
I recommend the following subjects for discussion in depth :
Automobile junkyards : I am convinced that analysis of the tech-
nology and economics can help produce a creative solution to this
vexing problem. The Bureau of Mines of the Interior Department
can contribute technical advice to the conference, as can the scrap
industry and the steel industry.
Underground installation of utility transmission lines: Further
research is badly needed to enable us to cope with this problem.
THE CONFERENCE CALL 15
The greatest single force that shapes the American landscape is
private economic development. Our taxation policies should not
penalize or discourage conservation and the preservation of beauty.
Ways in which the Federal Government can, through informa-
tion and technical assistance, help communities and States in their
own programs of natural beauty.
The possibilities of a national tree-planting program carried on
by government at every level, and private groups and citizens.
Conclusion
In my 33 years of public life I have seen the American system move
to conserve the natural and human resources of our land.
TVA transformed an entire region that was "depressed." The
rural electrification cooperatives brought electricity to lighten the
burdens of rural America. We have seen the forests replanted by
the CCC's, and watched Gifford Pinchot's sustained-yield concept
take hold on forest lands.
It is true that we have often been careless with our natural bounty.
At times we have paid a heavy price for this neglect. But once our
people were aroused to the danger, we have acted to preserve our
resources for the enrichment of our country and the enjoyment of
future generations.
The beauty of our land is a natural resource. Its preservation
is linked to the inner prosperity of the human spirit.
The tradition of our past is equal to today's threat to that beauty.
Our land will be attractive tomorrow only if we organize for action
and rebuild and reclaim the beauty we inherited. Our stewardship
will be judged by the foresight with which we carry out these pro-
grams. We must rescue our cities and countryside from blight with
the same purpose and vigor with which, in other areas, we moved to
save the forests and the soil.
LYNDON B. JOHNSON.
THE WHITE HOUSE, February 8, 1965.
CHAPTER 2
THE GENERAL SESSION
9:30 a.m., Monday, May 24
Mrs. LYNDON B. JOHNSON. Welcome to the White House Con*
f erence on Natural Beauty.
We are grateful that you have taken two days of your busy lives
to come here and discuss ways to restore and increase the beauty
of our land.
In the catalogue of ills which afflicts mankind, ugliness and the
decay of our cities and countryside are high on America's agenda.
It seems to me that one of the most pressing challenges for the
individual is the depression and the tension resulting from existence
in a world which is increasingly less pleasing to the eye. Our peace
of mind, our emotions, our spirit even our souls are conditioned
by what our eyes see.
Ugliness is bitterness. We are all here to try and change that.
This conference is a step towards the solution and I think a great one.
Our immediate problem is: How can one best fight ugliness in
a nation such as ours where there is great freedom of action or
inaction for every individual and every interest where there is
virtually no artistic control and where all action must originate
with the single citizen or group of citizens?
That is the immediate problem and challenge. Most of the great
cities and great works of beauty of the past were built by autocratic
societies. The Caesars built Rome. Paris represents the will of
the Kings of France and the Empire. Vienna is the handiwork
of the Hapsburgs, and Florence of the Medici.
Can a great democratic society generate the concerted drive to
plan, and having planned, to execute great projects of beauty?
I not only hope so I am certain that it can.
All our national history proves that a committed citizenry is
a mighty force when it bends itself to a determined effort. There
17
18 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
is a growing feeling in this land today that ugliness has been allowed
too long, that it is time to say "Enough," and to act.
During these two days you will discuss and originate plans and
projects both great and small. Great must be the scope of the major
projects to redesign our urban areas, renew and brighten the gate-
ways to our cities, cleanse, set in order and dignify our riverfronts
and our ports. Small, but equally important perhaps most im-
portant is the single citizen who plants a tree or tends his own front
yard. There are 190 million of him. He is everybody.
Perhaps the most important part of this conference will be to help
educate our people that the beauty of their land depends upon their
own initiative and their will.
I have heard said and many times that among our greatest
ills is the deep sense of frustration which the individual feels when he
faces the complex and large problems of our century. Ugliness is not
that sort of problem. Its vast scope will call for much coordination on
the highest levels. But and this is the blessing of it it is one prob-
lem which every man and women and child can attack and contribute
to defeating. Natural beauty may be a national concern and there
is much that government can and should do, but it is the individual
who not only benefits, but who must protect a heritage of beauty
for future generations.
There are no autocrats in our land to decree beauty, only a na-
tional will. Through your work, I firmly believe this national will
can be given energy and force, and produce a more beautiful
America.
The Conference Chairman, LAURANCE S. ROCKEFELLER. In cal-
ling us together, President Johnson set the tone for our endeavor. He
said: I want new ideas. He said: I want to alert the American
people to action. He cited concrete, specific problems for us to
consider not abstractions or theories.
In accordance with the President's directive, this conference is
organized for action. It is not for philosophizing. As Mrs. John-
son said at the first meeting of her committee to beautify Washing-
ton, "We must not substitute the delight of debate for the art of
action."
This is not to say that a social and moral basis for natural beauty
is unnecessary. It is rather to say that we have such a foundation.
President Johnson has already affirmed it.
The people of this country, he has said, want not only a bigger
America but a better and more beautiful America as well.
THE GENERAL SESSION 19
He knows they are concerned about the kind of country they are
building for themselves and their children.
He knows they are ready to support sound, economical, and imagi-
native programs to bring about this kind of America.
In his natural beauty message, the President summed up the chal-
lenge:
The beauty of our land is a natural resource. Its preservation is
linked to the inner prosperity of the human spirit.
The tradition of our past is equal to today's threat to that beauty.
Our land will be attractive tomorrow only if we organize for action
and rebuild and reclaim the beauty we inherited. Our stewardship
will be judged by the foresight with which we carry out these pro-
grams. We must rescue our cities and countryside from blight with
the same purpose and vigor with which, in other areas, we moved to
save the forests and the soil.
I suggest that this conference accept this commitment as its theme.
We propose this sweeping premise not only because of the Presi-
dent's vision but because the people in the cities and towns across our
land have made it clear that they want a better environment. Now
as never before they are ready to work for it.
In a different sense, beauty is its own justification. As Emerson
said "If eyes were made for seeing, beauty is its own excuse for
being."
Most of us would agree. Certainly the President does. His per-
sonal concern for natural beauty is real and effective.
Thus, with his leadership and statement of purpose, we have a clear
national goal.
Our task is to produce specific ideas and come up with solutions
that will lead us toward these goals.
That is why the panel topics we will be considering are not abstrac-
tions or exercises in theory. They are hard, real issues. In selecting
these issues, three major areas of concern evolved the city, the
countryside, and the highways. Under each theme there is a series
of panels on specific problems.
We found that the things that needed the most attention were
those close to people physically as well as emotionally. In seeking
to translate people's yearning for natural beauty into practical pro-
grams, the primary challenge is the environment where most people
live and work our cities and the suburbs and countryside around
them.
20 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
There is a fourth general theme concerned with ways and means
of doing the job. This includes citizen action, government action,
and education.
I personally feel that in the long run education may be one of
the most important of all. If succeeding generations of Americans
are to know the meaning and beauty of nature, most of them, un-
happily, must be taught in classrooms. They must have as much
opportunity as possible to live and to experience beauty in their
formal education.
There are no panels on such elements of beauty as national parks
and forests or wilderness. They are so obviously important that the
point need not be belabored. They should have our continuing sup-
port, but we believe that this conference should concentrate on new
ideas that have not received as much attention as they should.
We have also not specifically included water and air pollution con-
trol. Perhaps no problems are more important to the quality of
environment and to our general health and well-being, but there are
established research and action programs in this field. They need
to be improved but we can affirm our strong support for pollution
control and move on.
In choosing panelists, we chose the individual, not the office.
We sought a cross section of varying points of view. There are
people from business and labor and the farms. There are interested
citizens and government officials and conservationists. We are par-
ticularly pleased that some of the most distinguished members of the
Congress have agreed to work with us on the panels. We are also
grateful that several outstanding foreign authorities have come to
work with us.
It might also be noted that those in the audience who are not on
the panels are well qualified to serve. Indeed, most if not all of you
were nominated to be on them. We want the benefit of your counsel.
Half of each panel session will be devoted to your questions and
recommendations.
Tomorrow afternoon we have the unique opportunity to give
the President some new and important ideas. We can meet this
challenge only by being bold and imaginative in concept and prac-
tical and sound in application.
I am sure that we agree that the following conclusions are basic
to every panel :
THE GENERAL SESSION 21
Yes, more research is needed.
Yes, better coordination is needed.
Yes, more money for present programs is needed.
All are indeed essential, but let's accept that truth and concentrate
on new ideas.
This is our charge for the next two days new, practical ideas for
solving specific problems.
Now, before we get to work in our panels, I would like to take
a few minutes to emphasize three points about the urgency and
importance of what we are doing.
The first is that natural beauty must be an integral part of our
national life. It cannot be a frill or afterthought or a luxury subject
to the red pencil of accountants, public or private. It must be a vital
part of the way we build our country.
Over the next 40 years we are going to rebuild this country. We
will build as many houses as we have since this country was first
settled. We will build enough offices and factories to create at
least one and a half million new jobs each year. We will complete
and expand our network of interstate highways and rebuild our
system of secondary roads.
In doing all this, we must provide as much open space and park-
land as is possible. But the concrete that is poured and the steel
that is raised will have a far greater effect on our environment than
the land we can hope to save or restore.
How we build our factories, how we create our next generation
of suburbs, how we build our great highway system will determine
in large measure how beautiful an America we will create for our
children and grandchildren.
The second point is that natural beauty is basic to the spiritual
side of our national life. How we treat our land, how we build
upon it, how we act toward our air and water will in the long run
tell what kind of people we really are.
Conservation, outdoor recreation, physical fitness, and environ-
mental health are all directly involved. Culture and education are
as well.
Natural beauty, in short, is one of the very important expressions
of national character.
The perception of beauty, Thoreau said, is a moral test. I sug-
gest that perception of beauty and action to preserve and create it
are a fundamental test of a great society.
22 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
The third point is that natural beauty greatly influences the
quality of the individual lives we lead.
When Americans turn down the street where they live, there can
be cleanliness and touches of green no matter how pretentious
or how humble the home or there can be decay and neglect and
depression.
When Americans arrive at their work, whether it be the White
House or a mill, there can be touches of beauty or there can be grime
and dirt and spirit-deadening indifference.
When Americans drive along our roads and highways, there can
be pleasing vistas and attractive roadside scenes or there can be end-
less corridors walled in by neon, junk, and ruined landscape.
When Americans seek the countryside, there can be pleasing land-
scapes, healthy air and water and places of beauty or there can be
a wasteland of gravel pits, overgrown fields, and places of refuse
rather than refuge.
These are the choices. For the next 36 hours we in this room
have a unique opportunity to help direct the choices.
We cannot solve all the problems of creating a beautiful America
in these hours, but we can take a big step perhaps many steps
in that direction.
Tomorrow we report directly to the President of the United
States, and we also report to the people of the United States. There
is every reason to believe that they are eager to follow up on any
recommendation.
Therefore, let us now go to work.
CHAPTER 3
THE RECREATION ADVISORY
COUNCIL
9 a.m., Tuesday, May 25
An open meeting of the Recreation Advisory Council was held as
part of the White House Conference on Natural Beauty. Council
members present were the Secretary of the Interior, the Hon. Stewart
L. Udall; the Secretary of Agriculture and Chairman of the Council,
the Hon. Orville L. Freeman; the Secretary of Commerce, the Hon.
John T. Connor; the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare,
the Hon. Anthony J. Celebrezze; the Administrator, Housing and
Home Finance Agency, the Hon. Robert J. Weaver, and the Chair-
man of the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Hon. Aubrey J. Wagner.
Representing the Secretary of Defense was the Assistant Secretary
for Manpower, the Hon. Norman S. Paul. The Chairman of the
Council staff, Dr. Edward C. Crafts, Director of the Bureau of Out-
door Recreation was also present.
Mr. Freeman presided at the meeting and was introduced by the
chairman of the conference. Mr. Rockefeller expressed the con-
ference's appreciation for the Council's participation and thanked its
members for their help in planning and organizing the conference.
The Chairman, Secretary FREEMAN. May I say to you that the
Recreation Advisory Council is pleased to be here. Before the ques-
tion and answer session I would like briefly to report to you on be-
half of my fellow members in this Council why it was first estab-
lished, how it functions, its accomplishments in its first three years
and its objectives.
The Recreation Advisory Council was established in response to
a recommendation made by the Outdoor Recreation Resources Re-
view Commission. Upon finding that there are approximately 30
Federal agencies with responsibilities and activities related to outdoor
recreation, the Commission under the leadership of Laurance S.
23
24 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
Rockefeller wisely recognized the need to give balance and direc-
tion to all Federal activities influencing enjoyment of the outdoors,
and the need to provide for maximum coordination of these activi-
ties. So it has become the function of the Council to serve as a
balance wheel, a direction finder, a coordinator.
Each department represented on the Council has specific, primary
assignments for which it is responsible to the Congress and the Presi-
dent. Yet, in carrying out basic missions, each department becomes
involved in one or more aspects of outdoor recreation and simul-
taneously natural beauty.
The Department of Agriculture's primary responsibility rests in
the agricultural economy and the related consumer protections, yet
its activities in these areas involve resource conservation and land
management, watershed protection and tree plantings, and rural de-
velopment efforts that contribute to expanded outdoor recreation op-
portunities. Closely associated with recreation and beauty on pub-
lic lands is the Department's Forest Service, while its Soil Conserva-
tion Service has a similar role related to private lands.
The Tennessee Valley Authority is recognized as a source of elec-
tric power and fertilizers, yet its influence on the recreational re-
sources and beauty of the landscape in its region is almost beyond
measurement.
Access to outdoor recreation and natural beauty are aspects of
Department of Commerce public roads policy that range far beyond
the commercial and convenience aspects of highway construction.
The Department of Defense, through the Army Corps of Engi-
neers, adds to our recreational resources and influences restoration
and maintenance of natural beauty through the development of
reservoirs which have the basic purpose of preventing floods and
creating electric power.
The Housing and Home Finance Agency is concerned with the
environment of housing as well as the quality of homes, and expresses
this concern in the planning and preservation of open spaces in de-
velopment areas.
The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, by battling
pollution of water and air, makes what we see more beautiful and
what we drink and breathe more pure.
And no agency of Federal Government is more intimately identi-
fied with recreation and natural beauty on a day-to-day operating
basis than the Department of the Interior.
THE RECREATION ADVISORY COUNCIL 25
And so it goes across the entire range of departmental respon-
sibilities. Each department, while carrying out its primary function,
has roles related to outdoor recreation and the beauty of our environ-
ment. These roles, representing an integral part of their ongoing
programs, are not the type that can be scooped up into a single shovel
and poured into a new agency of government.
The idea of creating a Czar of Natural Beauty and Outdoor Life
has academic attraction but in my judgment is neither practically
nor politically feasible. Yet, it is obvious that coordinated planning,
performance, and direction among Federal agencies and between
Federal and State governments is vital to the immediate and long-
range goals of this conference and our Nation.
As a practical matter, we need to find increasingly better means
through which each department can supplement even acceler-
ate efforts of the others in the field of beauty and outdoor recrea-
tion, while at the same time recognizing that each great department
must respond to its assignments as established by Congress.
The Recreation Advisory Council was established with that pur-
pose in mind. Whether it is meeting the purpose, whether it needs
strengthening in policy and performance, are topics this conference
may well wish to take under consideration.
Let us take a look at the record. It contains, I believe, some posi-
tive and progressive chapters.
The Recreation Advisory Council has :
1. Adopted a policy statement calling for the establishment of a
limited number of National Recreation Areas. Binding upon mem-
ber agencies, this policy specified criteria for selection of these areas
and agreed they would be established only by Act of Congress. The
Council further agreed to consider individual proposals, and to
recommend appropriate action for establishment, priority, and juris-
dictional responsibility.
2. The Council has adopted general policy guidelines for outdoor
recreation which give high priority to preparation of a nationwide
plan and cover the Council's views of the roles of Federal, State and
local governments and the private sector.
3. The Council has issued a policy statement on the water pollu-
tion and public health aspects of outdoor recreation.
4. It has recommended development of a national program for
scenic roads and parkways.
26 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
The Recreation Advisory Council has served as a useful forum for
airing and adjusting overlapping and conflicting jurisdictional
problems.
1. In line with a recommendation made by the Bureau of Out-
door Recreation, the Council was instrumental in bringing about an
agreement on which of two Federal agencies would administer the
recreation development of Federal lands surrounding the Allegheny
Reservoir in western Pennsylvania. This action provides a prece-
dent for resolving similar situations in the future.
2. The Council considered and concurred in recommendations
subsequently made to the President by Secretary Udall and myself
related to establishment of the Oregon Dunes National Seashore and
establishment of the Whiskeytown-Shasta-Trinity and Flaming
Gorge National Recreation Areas; and our recommendation that
there be joint examination of Federal lands in the North Cascade
Mountains in Washington.
3. The Council also played an important part in implementation
of the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act. It has taken three
actions: (a) It submitted to the President the Executive Order,
which the President subsequently issued, to permit implementation of
the Act; (b) It reviewed and concurred in the standards for recrea-
tion user fees which were subsequently issued by regulation of the
Secretary of the Interior; and (c) It adopted the standard definition
of visitor day for reporting recreation use, needed in connection with
the allocation of funds for Federal projects under the Act.
4. Further, the Recreation Advisory Council serves as a forum
where coordination measures can be reviewed before they are made
effective.
In addition, the following achievements merit attention:
1 . Since the Council's policy statement, Congress has established
the Lake Mead National Recreation Area and Fire Island National
Seashore. Establishment of several other national recreation areas
is pending. Congress is giving appropriate consideration to the cri-
teria recommended by the Council.
2. In connection with the Federal Water Project Recreation Act,
which has passed the Senate and is pending in the House, the House
Committee Report directs that definitions approved by the Recrea-
tion Advisory Council shall be followed in determining which areas
are appropriate for Federal administration under that Act.
3. The Council's recommendation on development of a national
THE RECREATION ADVISORY COUNCIL 27
program for scenic roads and parkways is now underway in the De-
partment of Commerce. Completion is expected this summer and
it will cover criteria for selection, relative priorities, methods of fi-
nancing and probably legislative proposals.
The Council now has four important studies in progress, which
will likely result in policy recommendations. They involve:
1. Procedures for measuring recreation use on Federal lands.
2. Recommendations on the role of the private sector in providing
outdoor recreation.
3. Non-Federal management of recreational facilities on Federal
lands and waters.
4. Land management responsibilities of Federal agencies at Land
and Water Resources projects.
Let me conclude with these observations :
There is a close relationship between the development of outdoor
recreation resources and the program outlined by President Johnson
in his Natural Beauty Message. I believe the Executive Order estab-
lishing the Council gives it implicit duties with respect to natural
beauty just as it gives explicit duties in outdoor recreation. If there
is any question on this score, the Executive Order should be clarified.
Like any advisory group, the Recreation Advisory Council has its
problems including effective participation by principals, financing,
staff services, and gaining acceptance and utilization of its recom-
mendations.
Too, it must establish good relationships with related councils,
including the Water Resources Council that would be established
by pending legislation now in conference after passing both House
and Senate.
The Council has under consideration the creation of a Blue Ribbon
Citizen Advisory Committee.
The task before us, if for no other reason than it involves vary-
ing jurisdictions public and private, Federal and State and local
is monumental. At the same time, it represents a truly inspiring
challenge.
Recommendations of this conference and how to increase the
Council's effectiveness in responding to the challenge will be grate-
fully received.
779-595 Qi
28 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
Questions and Discussion
Panel chairmen were invited to participate at this point in the
meeting. Limitations of time prevented the entertainment of ques-
tions from the full conference.
Mr. GODDARD. You talked very briefly to this point, but to empha-
size it I would like to ask this question :
Should not the functions of the Recreation Advisory Council be
broadened to include natural beauty or quality of environment,
rather than being confined to outdoor recreation? Would not it be
advisable to amend the Executive Order to make this responsibility
with respect to natural beauty explicit rather than implicit?
Secretary FREEMAN. I think that question was directed to me.
I believe natural beauty is implicitly involved within the missions
of the various departments and agencies, and also that it is implicitly
encompassed in the Executive Order as it now stands. If there is any
question about that, I think the Executive Order ought to be amended
to make it very clear. It seems to me outdoor recreation and beauty,
although not precisely synonymous, are so interrelated that programs
should be planned with both very much in mind.
Mr. MOTT. The Recreation Advisory Council has no authority as
such. It can only promote coordination. Would it not be desirable
to amend the Executive Order to give the Council authority to im-
pose its conclusions or recommendations on the various agencies of
the executive branch?
Secretary FREEMAN. I think it is extremely doubtful that the
Congress would assign to any council and take away from operating
departments the kind of authority implicit in your question. Funda-
mentally, your question implies the establishment of a new operat-
ing department a department of recreation and natural beauty
which would take certain functions from the programs of other de-
partments and set up a new mechanism to perform these functions.
The idea might sound good at first blush, but I think it would
prove quite unworkable in actual practice.
Secretary UDALL. I would like to comment on this because I
know that is a question on which there is wide interest.
I think I would agree generally with what Senator Gaylord Nel-
son said yesterday. This job of protecting and restoring the quality
THE RECREATION ADVISORY COUNCIL 29
of the American environment, of making it worthy of a country as
rich and as prosperous as ours, is a very big undertaking. It is one
that will take probably, in my judgment, closer to two decades than
one to accomplish and, as he indicated yesterday, many billions of
dollars wisely spent.
There may be some who think that the most important thing is
some trick of organization. It seems to me that we are going to need
more importantly during that period of a decade or two a President
who really cares about these things, and I would hope a First Lady,
too.
I think you are going to need a sense of crusade in the country.
I think you are going to have to have a change in priority, you are
going to have to have broad citizen participation and I think we
sitting here, who run the Federal departments, are going to have to
be deeply involved and care very deeply about it. I think there is
going to have to be coordination. I think you are going to have to
have ready access to the White House, to the President. I think
that we have this at the present time and I think that what we need
most of all are the programs and the policies that will implement
what obviously is a consensus of this conference that a whole wide
range of new action programs are needed. I don't think any simple
reorganization that I can think of is going to accomplish nearly as
much as the implementation of these new programs.
Mr. WEAVER. I agree with what you have said and what Secretary
Udall said. I think that the machinery for operating these various
programs is less important than the fact that there is consultation,
that there is agreement. I think it is much more effective when this
cuts across departments and agencies, when men sit down, as we
have been sitting down, and make policy decisions which we all
agree are going to be ones that we enforce upon ourselves.
Finally, I think by the very nature of this government, the heads
of the departments and agencies have to be responsible to the Con-
gress as well as to the Nation. I don't think that you can delegate
the operation of specific programs to any new advisory committee,
and I am sure Congress would not permit it anyway.
Mr. WAGNER. I would agree. I would only add that the ques-
tion seems to imply that beauty is something which can be treated
in and of itself apart from ongoing programs. It seems to me that
we will do the job that must be done only as each of the operating
30 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
agencies consciously builds into its activities an awareness of the
need to create rather than to destroy beauty.
I recall and I think this is part of the ongoing programs I re-
call when I first went to the TVA in 1934 the eroding red clay hill-
sides of the Tennessee Valley were as ugly as they could be. They
were restored through the fertilizer plant that Secretary Freeman
mentioned, by revitalizing agriculture, by putting corn lands into
pasture. And this seems to me to be the way beauty must be
achieved. It can't be superimposed as a separate thing on the whole
Nation. It must be built into each of our ongoing programs.
Senator Muskie made this point yesterday morning very effectively.
Mr. PAUL. I would like to underline what you said, Mr. Secre-
tary. For example, in our case, we of course have a primarily
military mission. But we happen to control 27 million acres of
lands in this country which I believe, is roughly the size of New
England.
Any means of dissipating the responsibilities away from the De-
fense officials, such as a military base commander, would be a very
bad thing. In fact, I think it would be completely unworkable.
I wish to underline what you said.
Secretary CONNOR. A Federal agency, whether it is a council or
a separate department, can only do so much in a program of this
kind. So much depends upon local participation, and particularly
on the authority and programs at the State level. I think, therefore,
it would be a mistake to try to centralize all the authority in any one
Federal department. I think that the combination of authority that
we see among various Federal agencies and also at the State and
local levels gives us a most effective mechanism for action.
Secretary FREEMAN. This is not a problem unique to outdoor
recreation or beauty.
In the Department of Agriculture, we play a part in implementing
the programs of many Federal agencies in rural areas. We must
have maximum coordination to get the job done as effectively as
possible.
So I will say as I have said before the thing to do is to establish
a goal, and then to keep the attention of people in all echelons within
each department focused on the importance of cooperation and
coordination.
THE RECREATION ADVISORY COUNCIL 31
Mr. HAAR. Our question relates to the chairmanship of the Coun-
cil. We wonder how effective is this revolving chairmanship?
Would it be a better technique to have a permanent chairman, per-
haps one appointed by the President directly?
Secretary FREEMAN. There have only been two chairmen so far.
I think Secretary Udall was a fine chairman.
Mr. WEAVER. I think it has worked out very well so far. There
are advantages in that you get an involvement at the various levels
of all departments. You have a feeling that this is not somebody
else's business, because one day you are going to be chairman. I think
this has operational advantages, and finally, where you are coordi-
nating as this group attempts to do and coordination is a difficult
thing administratively I think it is very well to have the coordination
among people who have equal status rather than coordination by
somebody who is going to coordinate.
Secretary CONNOR. Just to amplify that a bit, I think that even a
short exposure to government indicates to me that when you have an
interdepartmental coordinating agency, that unless you have a
rotating chairman, pretty soon the fellow who is the chairman is
automatically delegated all the authority with respect to that activity
and this becomes the activity of his department with the other
departments taking only a peripheral interest in it. Although this
is still in the experimental stage, it seems to me that the points Mr.
Weaver made are valid, that if all the departments concerned are
to be responsible for various aspects of the program it is a good idea
to thrust the matter of chairmanship on each one in turn for one
go-around and see how it works.
Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, I should say at this point that Secre-
tary McNamara believes in the rotating chairmanship concept, but it
is a question of how far it rotates. For example, our feeling at present
is that the Department of Defense should not chair the Council. We
would like to remove the Secretary of Defense from the primary bur-
den of chairing the Council. We feel we should be on the Council
we have to be. We think that narrowing the potential numbers
of chairmen is probably a good idea, but we are all in favor of the
rotating principle.
Secretary FREEMAN. I might add a personal note that the Council
might want to consider. I think if the President saw fit to assign the
top staff person in the field of conservation and natural beauty as the
32 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
Chairman of this Council, that this would have some advantages of
continuity and a close and intimate relationship with the President.
I think this proposal may be entitled to some consideration and
discussion by this conference.
Mr. WEAVER. The issue here is a dual one. That is, whether or
not for the first time around, as we are beginning to get organized and
operating, there isn't some great advantage in the rotation of the
chairmanship. I would agree with Secretary Freeman that once
this operation gets underway and is established and some of the rough
edges are knocked off, a permanent chairmanship might have some
advantages.
Mr. BACON. I wanted to pick up on a statement that Mr. Wagner
made about creating and not destroying beauty. My question is
addressed to the Council as a body. Do you favor a Federal policy
for no further expressway construction in city, State, and national
parks?
Secretary FREEMAN. I don't know that anybody can really speak
for the Council per se in connection with this, because I don't think
that question has ever been actually presented. We can go down
the line here.
Secretary UDALL. Maybe we ought to discuss it.
Secretary FREEMAN. Do you suggest we do it right now?
Secretary UDALL. Not right now. As you well know, I am a
believer in Executive Sessions for controversial topics.
After the experience that we have had in my department, both
with the parks, wildlife refuges, and other outdoor recreation areas,
I would be very glad to take the affirmative on that topic in the
Council if you want to schedule it for a meeting.
Secretary CONNOR. Mr. Chairman, I think we should just empha-
size that this scenic road study which is now underway will be com-
pleted and ready for recommendations and actions during the course
of the summer. I think the results of that study will have a very
important bearing on this question.
I was glad I was up early enough this morning to read the morn-
ing paper before coming here and see that my friend Secretary Udall
has some plans for scenic roads. I happen to have in my pocket a
little proposal that would get us started on this in a modest way on
THE RECREATION ADVISORY COUNCIL 33
which we hope to get the approval of the President and submit to
Congress soon. This is a topic that deserves very serious considera-
tion, not only in this Council, but in Congress and among other
groups.
Mrs. WHITTEMORE. I would like to have discussed the question
of a citizens' advisory council.
Would it not be desirable that a small group of leading citizens
be appointed by the President and could not its functions be to
bring problems to the attention of the Council, to assist the Council
in implementing its recommendations, to prod the Council if neces-
sary, and to make the Council a more active and effective instrument
reaching out into citizens' groups, keeping them informed and have
a two-way line of communication?
Mr. WAGNER. This is a difficult one for me to comment on be-
cause in the first place, I think it is extremely important that our
actions do reflect what the citizenry wants. At the same time, I find
myself a little troubled with the proposal of an advisory council to
an advisory council.
It is appropriate to get local prodding and local views and if we
find we do not have the machinery in our own several organizations
to obtain them adequately then perhaps an advisory council charged
with one responsibility and function in this one field would be useful.
But again, I think this is a question of how many advisories we
should have.
Secretary CONNOR. Mr. Chairman, I would strongly favor a
citizens' advisory council. Particularly because of the importance
of local and State action in this field, we do need some means of
having ready access to the views of citizens who are broadly repre-
sentative in various parts of the country and various groups. I
think it is a good idea and we should give it consideration.*
Mr. PAUL. I think the idea of an advisory committee is a very
good one, but I think we ought to give some consideration to its
context.
In other words, I don't think it would be useful if it were just
advisory to the Recreation Council. But if advisory to the Presi-
dent, it would be worthwhile perhaps in a continuing way on the
* Secretary Connor at this point left the meeting to attend a Congressional
hearing.
34 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
whole subject of natural beauty. But just as an advisory committee
to this Council, I think is too narrow a function.
Secretary UDALL. I would concur with Secretary Paul. I think
the really basic question that we face is how does the momentum
arising out of this conference, out of the new initiative of the Presi-
dent how do we keep it rolling, rippling outward, gaining mo-
mentum? It is obvious, if all of you turn in nice reports and go
home, this will have an effect, but this won't keep the Nation aroused
as it should be. Because if this is to be a crusade of sorts, I think
there has to be a constant input of ideas and I think that, therefore,
there is a very important need for outstanding national leaders to
be prodding this Council, to be advising the President, to be perform-
ing both functions. Unless we have in some way or other a continu-
ation of what is going on here today, it is my feeling that we will have
lost something that is very important to us right now.
Secretary FREEMAN. I think that an advisory committee, a rea-
sonably small one, would be very useful. I think it could create bet-
ter understanding by individuals, groups, and local governments of
what the Council does. We sit down and work problems out, and
we are subject and I choose these words I hope you won't misun-
derstand to a certain scrutiny in this process. The stubbornness
that might exist at a given time and place in a given department when
something ought to be resolved or when there is overlapping, might
be overcome by just a little extra push, muscle, scrutiny, or outside
help. Otherwise we may not get over this hurdle of resolving diffi-
cult problems. In this sense, an advisory group would assume a very
important role by providing a focus of attention, and by helping
resolve amicably the difficult questions. Such a group could perform
a very useful function.
Mr. WHYTE. There is a great deal of confusion out in the field
over the rules of the game between the open space program under
HHFA and the Land and Water Conservation Fund of the Depart-
ment of the Interior. A lot of people are wondering what the bound-
aries of each are, who does what, and where. Because of this con-
fusion a lot of local projects have been grinding to a halt.
When might there be a clarification on this?
Secretary UDALL. Mr. Weaver and I have spent several hours
around tables with other people in the Administration and I think
we are very close to a resolution of this problem. I don't think any-
THE RECREATION ADVISORY COUNCIL 35
thing should really slow down because the Land and Water Conserva-
tion Fund doesn't come into operation for a month until the 1st of
July. We think this offers a big, new assist to the States and we
hope it will give a whole new rolling momentum to State outdoor
recreation programs. We hope the open space program is improved
and we think there ought to be some clean lines of demarcation and
everyone will understand the objectives of each program.
Mr. WEAVER. I would agree. I don't think there is any question
about this. By the time Secretary Udall gets his funds and we get
additional funds there will be a resolution. There is an agreement in
the Administration, and I think Congress also reflects an acceptance
of it that there will be financial parity between the two programs.
This was really the great problem, one program having one grant
level and the other another grant level.
Secondly, I don't think we are going to have complete lines of
jurisdictional separation, but there will be spheres of influence and
these in theory I think have been settled. Now we are trying to put
into language the philosophy which Secretary Udall and I have
agreed upon. I don't think we are going to have any problem here
and this will be resolved by the time the money is available.
Secretary FREEMAN. May I comment on this? This is a sub-
stantive question and it got a substantive answer. The degree of co-
operation within this Administration is evidenced by the state-
ment here that this is being worked out.
It would be proper, I think, to schedule similar matters before the
Advisory Council. A comparable question was discussed and re-
ported on in relation to the Allegheny Reservoir. If the members
of the operating departments can't resolve some question, then the
problem should be discussed and reviewed by the Council.
The Council could give an advisory opinion. This opinion would
not be binding on the participants, but it might help bring about an
agreement.
Senator FARR. This question should have been addressed to Sec-
retary Connor but perhaps the Chairman or Mr. Crafts can answer it.
What is the relationship between the highway beautification ef-
forts of the Highway Research Board, the scenic roads and highway
study of the Recreation Advisory Council and the new national
advisory committee to the Secretary of Commerce on highway
36 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
beautification? And is there overlapping and duplication in these
efforts?
Mr. GRAFTS. I don't think there is any, Senator Farr. Secretary
Connor could handle this a lot better than I can.
As I understand it, the highway beautification program relates
to the existing ongoing programs of the Department of Commerce
and the Bureau of Public Roads. The new advisory council that the
Secretary of Commerce has appointed is concerned with highway
beautification as related to the Federal-aid highway program. There
is a relationship between a citizens' group for this somewhat limited
purpose and a citizens' group that we were talking about a few min-
utes ago that might be advisory to the President across the board on
these matters.
With respect to the scenic road and parkway study, this is being
chaired by the Department of Commerce, but it is a program-develop-
ment undertaking that is being carried out for this Council. It will
be submitted to this Council and presumably in due course to the
President and probably will require new legislation.
So I would say there is certainly a very close relationship here, but
I don't see that there is overlapping or duplication.
Mr. BRANDWEIN. You spoke of criteria. I was just wondering
whether any criteria had been developed with regard to redevelop-
ment which would have concern for some animals or plants that took
almost three billion years to get here. Is there any way in which biol-
ogists, ecologists, could work in tandem with engineers to assure these
criteria might be met?
Secretary FREEMAN. You are referring now to highway construc-
tion in this regard?
Mr. BRANDWEIN. I am referring to any program that wipes out
areas where there are living things. I should worry generally about
useless elimination of living things.
Secretary FREEMAN. Let me say in connection with programs
within the Department of Agriculture, like the small watershed pro-
gram, we involve both State and Federal fish and wildlife people
every step of the way. There are also within the Department of
Agriculture matching funds available to develop fish and wildlife
habitat in watershed projects.
THE RECREATION ADVISORY COUNCIL 37
Mr. Crafts, could you answer that question in relation to the high-
way construction?
Mr. CRAFTS. Not particularly with respect to highway construc-
tion, but there is provision in the Land and Water Conservation Fund
Act, as you know, for the making available of certain portions of
this fund for the purchase of areas to protect endangered species of
fish and wildilfe.
Now, the success of this aspect of that program depends in part
on some additional substantive legislation which has not yet been
passed but which is pending within the Administration at the present
time.
Secretary UDALL. If I may comment.
It does seem to me that one result of this conference and maybe
the views of some are a bit too harsh, because I think there is change
in the air the advocates of the bulldozer approach to development,
and let's call it the former system of building highways, are very
much under attack and on the defensive. I think that what we
are seeing, really, is the entry into this whole process of land-use
planning and the relationship of people to this over-all environment,
a whole series of new considerations. The one you mention is an
important one.
Another important one is the preservation of all kinds of historic
landmarks. It is fantastic the destruction that we have done in a
lot of our new programs in the last few years in terms of destroying
things that are an important part of our environment and of our
history.
I think, ten years ago when I first came to Washington, for ex-
ample, the highway program was in a watertight compartment and
all of us all of the departments seemed to be looking backwards and
worked more or less in isolation. I think we are now aware of this
and that's why we sit here together, our programs are interrelated and
we have to be sensitive to all these values and try to accommodate
them within the new programs that are being activated. I think
this is one of the grounds for hope in this conference.
Mr. CLAY. Our waterfront panel has been quite disturbed at the
obvious conflict between the present deep-rooted and single-purpose
construction practices of many Federal agencies, especially those
agencies that had to do with water development.
38 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
My question is, what changes are needed to help Federal agencies
with water control or water resource programs to meet the President's
objective?
Secretary FREEMAN. I think this question might go to Mr. Paul
because you probably had in mind some of the structures that are
larger than those with which some of the rest of us are involved.
Mr. PAUL. This is a serious question that deserves a better answer
than I am able to give it. This is a matter for the Corps of Engineers,
of course, in their primary responsibility in the civil functions pro-
grams.
All I can say is that we will bend every effort within our author-
ities to meet the President's objectives.
Secretary FREEMAN. May I say that Mr. Paul has evidenced his
dedication to these principles again and again on the Council, and
I don't think that there is a better or more sensitive conservationist
in the country than the Secretary of Defense, Mr. McNamara. I am
sure they will be most sensitive to this.
Mr. WAGNER. We build some rather large projects in the Ten-
nessee Valley, too.
Someone once said that the major trouble with this country is
that the Indians had such a poor immigration policy. I suppose that
really is the cause of this conference. At the same time, it is true
that we are here, and the resources are here for us to use and I think
they were put here for man and not vice versa. And as our civiliza-
tion moves we have turned to using these resources, including the
rivers. I think they can be so used that they will contribute beauty
as well as economic strength. When I spoke earlier about citizens'
advisory councils I had this sort of thing in mind.
We in TVA have learned as we have gone along we found most
recently that when a new reservoir is proposed, if you have planning
machinery in the area State planning commissions, county plan-
ning commissions, municipal planning commissions it is wise to get
them together, to plan deliberately and in advance how the reservoir
shoreline will be used so that, for example, areas which will be needed
and are suitable for waterfront industry are not preempted, sub-
divided for cottage sites or other uses whose requirements are less
exacting.
This kind of planning with citizens' groups before a reservoir is
constructed is essential. It permits such groups to plan for construe-
THE RECREATION ADVISORY COUNCIL 39
tion, and to minimize costs by acting ahead of reservoir filling to build
marinas, to develop park areas and other water's edge facilities. I
think, Mr. Clay, that this approach is a beginning answer to the
question that you raised.
Mr. WEAVER. May I say something?
I would like very much to urge each one of us here who happens to
live in a city where you have river banks, to look at your own cities
and see what we have done to these river banks. I am always
struck by people who go 30 or 40 miles to get to some water when
they have it right at home, and have misused it and let it be misused
to the degree that it has been. Now we have in the pending legisla-
tion for the Housing and Home Finance Agency a small program to
assist in the beautification of such areas. But this program isn't
going to be worth anything unless there are many, many places
where many, many people decide to do something about what I
think is one of the greatest abuses of our natural resources right in
our own backyards.
Mr. SIMONDS. There are many governmental programs relating
to the creative planning of our cities, our roads and our countrysides
that are hard for us in the field to understand and to relate. We
are wondering, could it be considered a function of your Council to
prepare and keep current a manual listing these programs and out-
lining their essential provisions and application?
Mr. CRAFTS. Some of this has been done. There are several
publications and lists of various ongoing Federal programs that are
available. Some of them have been put out by Commerce, Interior,
and I think Agriculture.
But what has not been done, if I understood the question, is to
go into the detail and relationship of one to the other, and give sub-
stantive information about how they are interrelated. This has not
been done.
Secretary FREEMAN. We will look into that.
Mr. WEAVER. The difficulty is, you can do this under many, many
headings, and then you get this proliferated out almost ad infinitum.
If you take it from the point of view of a particular interested opera-
tion, then you get one catalog. If you take it from another point of
view, you get another. I am not so sure and not too sanguine that
you will ever be able to get out all the catalogs. I think it is almost
a custom job that has to be done.
40 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
Secretary FREEMAN. Will somebody ask the Secretary of Health,
Education, and Welfare a question this morning? He is getting a
free ride here. We can have a few from outside.
Mr. WEAVER. I just wanted to make a general comment and I
am sure that I speak for my colleagues to this degree that no one on
this Council desires to promote any Czar of Eeauty. Beauty is a
very intangible thing. Its ramifications extend far outward and if
we are to get the Great Society over into the domain of beauty, and
the creation of what I am sure we all as citizens want, the amount
of inertia is such that I think some kind of interchange between the
citizens and government, such as we are having here today, is an
excellent thing. We should continue it, because otherwise papers
die on desks. In the beginning of a movement of this sort there is
so little initiative, so few people in a position to speak, that I think
here is where education now I am coming around to this point is
enormously important. As my friend was remarking yesterday,
beauty is intangible it may exist in the human heart, in the indi-
vidual, or outside in the landscape. These things are so intercon-
nected that I think that some constant interchange is enormously im-
portant in the educational area and it is being neglected to a very
considerable degree.
Secretary CELEBREZZE. Let me say that I am a great listener.
The reason I am a great listener is that, unlike the other Secretaries
here, I have 260 advisory committees.
I want to comment on the point of education. Let me preface
this by saying that the beauty we are discussing was here once, but
man has destroyed it to a great extent. Now, the question is, how
do we change human behavior to restore beauty?
I think that in the educational process we must teach people to
appreciate things how to live with the better things. What, for
example, impels a person to tear the slats off of a park bench? If
we could save the money that we spend in this country to restore
articles destroyed by vandalism, this amount alone would go a
long, long way in beautifying in meeting some of the objectives of
this conference.
Now, when we speak of the education process in this connection
when we speak of beauty we must consider that beauty means
many things to many people. Recreation, too, means many things
to many people. To a very old person, for example, recreation may
THE RECREATION ADVISORY COUNCIL 41
mean simply sitting on his front porch and rocking and looking at
the green grass. To others it means traveling long distances, per-
haps to the national parks.
My field of endeavor has been primarily in congested cities. I
was reared in congested cities and I was mayor of a congested city
for five terms. In such places we must start at the local level
through your guidance clubs, your recreational councils, your neigh-
borhood and area councils you have to start at the grassroots, so
to speak. If anyone thinks that we can concentrate on this problem
at the Federal level and get it licked, he is just wasting his time.
Somehow we have to get down to the grassroots level.
Now I know the cost of vandalism. In my own city of Cleveland
I could have built 1 extra swimming pools each year for what it cost
to take care of vandalism. And when you get right down to it, the
whole problem is one in educating.
Much of this can be done in the schools. We have underway at
NIH at the present time some studies in human behavior what
causes people to do certain things. I think that we are going to have
to put a great deal of stress on the educational process on teaching
people to appreciate beauty including the material things that have
both utilitarian and aesthetic value.
Not everyone can go to Secretary UdalPs State and see and enjoy
the wide open spaces. In the congested cities, working along with
Mr. Weaver, we must create open spaces and parks, we must purify
our polluted water systems and there again, if we rely solely upon
the Federal Government to purify our rivers and streams, we are
going to be greatly disappointed.
Water pollution and air pollution can be stopped on the local
level. In many instances it is a political consideration. People
must be taught that the most precious thing they have is water our
water supply in this country and that our waterways must not be
sewers.
Now this sometimes requires rough action on the part of mayors
and governors. In the city of Cleveland I had to draw a line on
housing development in the outskirts of the city because they were
putting in septic tanks. Fortunately, the large cities in most in-
stances control the water supplies, so they can say to the suburban
developers, you will get no water unless you put in proper sewer sys-
tems and a sewage treatment plant.
42 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
The Federal Government is making grants along these lines. But
aside from that which the Federal Government does, it is, I think,
basically a problem of educating the American public on the appre-
ciation of beauty. And unless we do so, we may come back time
and time again to conferences such as this, and still solve no problems.
CHAPTER 4
THE FEDERAL-STATE-LOCAL
PARTNERSHIP
10:30 a.m., Monday, May 24
The Chairman, Mr. GODDARD. With your permission I will quote
very briefly from a report I presented to the North American Wild-
life and Natural Resources Conference held here several months ago.
The task of conservation in the years ahead is to convert men from
a parasite of earth to its steward, not just because we enjoy the beauty
and bounty of the earth for its own sake, though we do, but because
the continued existence of civilized man himself is involved. The
conservation must unite a parasite of earth to its steward the re-
source sciences with an aesthetic for a new America. We must make
sure that from here on out, we are running our technology and it is no
longer running us. Technological know-how must become the chief
handmaiden for creating and preserving a balanced, healthy, and
beautiful environment capable of supporting man and his fellow-
creatures indefinitely.
The majority of the panels of this great and historic White House
Conference on Natural Beauty are in my mind technical in nature.
They will recommend and suggest specifics to accomplish the goals
you and I are looking for. The great challenge as I see it for our
Panel on the Federal-State-Local Partnership is to suggest ways of
getting the job done.
We have an aroused public interest. We have a sympathetic
Congress. Conservation and the preservation of natural beauty has
Members of the Panel on the Federal-State-Local Partnership were
Ramsey Clark, Robert Edman, Maurice K. Goddard (chairman),
Luther Gulick, Senator Edmund S. Muskie, Joseph Penfold, and
Fred Smith. Staff Associate was Norman Beckman.
779-59565 4 43
44 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
become a potent political force. Its impact is being felt every day
through the mass communications media and our educational
systems.
We now have important acts of Congress to aid us. We have a
Land and Water Conservation Fund Act. We have a National
Wilderness Preservation System. We have a wetland acquisitions
program. The list is almost endless and there are more on the way;
for example, Senator Muskie's new Water Pollution Control bill, S. 4.
I am confident that we have or will have the tools as a result of
this conference. But will we be able to establish effective admin-
istrative procedures to accomplish the goals we have set for ourselves?
As I see it this is why we need this panel and the two related
panels the one on Education and the other on Citizen Action
which will follow tomorrow.
Senator MUSKIE. I recall the first piece of advice that the then
Senator Lyndon Johnson gave me when I came to the Senate. He
reminded me that when I was talking, I wasn't learning. This is
good advice to give a freshman Senator and, I suppose, it is good
advice to give to a Senator at any time.
I have often thought we could substitute for the filibuster rule
of the Senate a sort of unwritten rule that many people practice.
I recall the story of an out-of-Stater who was trying unsuccessfully
to strike up a conversation with a Maine native and finally, after
considerable frustration he said in exasperation, "My God, do you
have a law against talking in this town?" The native said, "No,
but we sort of got an understanding that we don't say anything that
doesn't improve on silence."
I think that's a rule that the Senate might follow.
And so, undertaking to observe that Maine rule, rather than the
more liberal filibuster rule of the Senate, I am going to confine myself
to a relatively few comments.
We could, of course, if we got into the substantive issues of con-
servation and beauty, embark upon a long discussion of all of the
issues which are of concern to us as individuals. But I take it that
we are concerned here principally with the problem of the mechanics
of creating and implementing effective public policy on the Federal
level, State level, and local level in dealing with this new concept of
conservation which is stimulating and exciting so many Americans.
We are concerned, of course, with water pollution, air pollution,
and in these two fields we are, I think, involved in emerging organi-
THE FEDERAL-STATE-LOG AL PARTNERSHIP 45
zational and policy relationships among the three levels of govern-
ment which are taking increasing form along constructive lines.
As we consider this problem of the organizational approaches to
improving the coordination of Federal agencies or Federal-State-
local coordination of recreational affairs, I think we ought to recog-
nize two important points. One, that the operating agencies on the
State level will vary from State to State and will permeate the entire
structure of State government. The operating agencies on the Fed-
eral level also permeate the whole structure of government and will
vary from those on the State and local government levels. To estab-
lish a vertical relationship through the Federal system which will
tie in these variations in operating agencies on the Federal-State-
local level is a considerable problem, but we ought to avoid getting
so involved in the organization problem that we overlook what it
is that we are really trying to do.
What we are trying to do here is to inject the concept and a feeling
of urgency about beauty and conservation into existing programs,
rather than to try to restructure everything that we are doing on the
State and local and Federal levels in these fields.
For example, the States vary in their highway programs with re-
spect to their policies and with respect to the urgency that they feel
about the impact of highway construction upon the beauty of
America. And these variations relate not only to billboard control
and to roadside picnic areas, but to junkyard control and many others.
Now, I don't think dealing with the problem of beauty as it re-
lates to highways requires that we restructure our organization for
building highways, but rather that we find a way to create a new
sense of urgency and to incorporate into our highway program a
new concept, a new perspective on its relationship to the landscape in
our States.
Carrying this thought further, then, we have got to recognize that
natural beauty and recreation are really functions of land or water
use by people in one way or another and that these functions and
our way of dealing with them in government are spread throughout
both levels of government and will continue to operate in that way.
I think the recommendations that we are considering this morning
for dealing with this problem of natural beauty on the Federal level
recognize the points that I am trying to make. I think we have
to recognize that the primary responsibility in this field rests at the
State and local level, and that it should rest there not only because
of the concept of States' rights involved as a matter of fact, I
46 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
think we ought to forget about that in this field but because if we
can get those levels of government operating effectively in this field,
we will get a better job done than if we were to try to create a Federal
monolith reaching its tentacles into all aspects of American govern-
mental life.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I think I risk trespassing upon the
limitations of my Maine rule if I were to continue. So for a while
now I will observe a respectful Maine silence and listen.
Mr. EDMAN. When I was invited to this panel I was asked, if pos-
sible, to take the role of a devil's advocate. I was told that if in my
presentation I could arouse the ire of some of the participants, this
would be a measure of success.
Accepting an invitation at its face value, I am going to comment
a little bit about Federal-State-local relationships from the point
of view of my experience in the Minnesota program.
A true partnership can exist only if each of the partners is sure
of its proper role and if he understands what responsibilities his part-
ners have assumed. Unfortunately, in the field of programing for
the preservation and development of the natural beauty of this coun-
try, two of the partners, i.e., the State and local units of government,
are confused regarding the role of the various Federal agencies.
We are all aware of the "701" program, "Title VII," "566," Com-
munity facilities loans, RAD programs, OEDP's, etc. Some of the
programs require a comprehensive planning approach, some do not.
Each of the agencies is adopting its own definition of "plans" and
too many of the agencies seem to gear their requirements to how
fast they can distribute funds rather than to identify eligible projects
according to correlated, comprehensive requirements.
Obviously, some Federal agency must be given this responsibility.
If this is to be the BOR, it is difficult for many of us to see how this
can be done unless BOR definitely adopts the comprehensive plan-
ning approach and is placed in a true coordinating position. The De-
partment of the Interior would seem to be a questionable location
for an agency responsibile for complete outdoor recreation and nat-
ural beauty responsibility.
The Minnesota State Legislature during 1965 adopted a compre-
hensive new program of outdoor recreation to supplement the financ-
ing structure initiated in 1 963. In 1963 Minnesota set aside one cent
of the cigarette tax to launch an accelerated program of land acquisi-
tion. At the same time it created the Minnesota Outdoor Recreation
THE FEDERAL-STATE-LOCAL PARTNERSHIP 47
Resources Commission. During the past two years MORRC took a
good detailed look at current State, Federal, and local resources pro-
grams and recommended a complete package of planning, coordina-
tion, grants-in-aid, and land acquisition.
Minnesota has come to a number of conclusions regarding develop-
ment of the natural beauty of the State all of them directly involved
with Federal-State-local relationships.
1. Planning for the preservation and development of the natural
beauty of the State is not a matter for partisan exploitation. It must
be made abundantly clear to all that it is poor politics to play politics
with our natural resources.
2. A program of resources preservation and development must
look at the complete picture. We must recognize that the conserva-
tion groups alone are not the only portions of the society interested
in and responsible for protecting our heritage. We need more
parks, and forests, and wetlands, and public access, etc. But clean
water, scenic highways, proper zoning, history, archeology, paleon-
tology, natural areas, billboard control, etc., are all part of the total
picture. In many cases in our rush for land acquisition programs,
we sometimes forget to correlate these needs or give them proper
priorities in our spending programs.
3. It is impossible to intelligently plan for development of our
resources without proper research and planning. Therefore, all
levels of government must recognize the need for acceleration of our
topographic mapping, soil surveys, hydrologic studies, river basin
studies, and comprehensive planning.
4. You can't do recreation planning in a vacuum. Recreation
planning must be within the framework of a comprehensive plan-
ning approach.
5. Comprehensive planning on every level of government, from
the Federal down through State planning, regional planning, county
and local planning, is an essential first step in recognizing the respon-
sibility of each unit of government involved in protection and de-
velopment of our natural beauty.
6. Logically, it follows that acquisition and development pro-
grams must be accompanied by adequate controls and zoning on
the State and local level.
7. It also follows that any and all grant-in-aid programs and loan
programs must be identified as part of the comprehensive planning
programs of the various units of government.
48 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
8. It is most disturbing to many of us working on a State and
local level to find how many various Federal recreational programs
do not require project identification as part of a comprehensive ap-
proach. Some of the new Federal highway requirements are a
step in the right direction. Certainly the Housing and Home Fi-
nance Agency "Tide VII" approach is sound and should be en-
couraged. But these are the exceptions. "566" funds for recrea-
tion are not necessarily correlated with State or county recreational
plans and neither are game and fish funds. We all know of ARA
projects and Community Facilities loans for recreation with abso-
lutely no correlation with the over-all needs of the community. Yes,
and I realize at this conference that this may be heresy, but too
many States are rushing their statewide plans to meet BOR require-
ments, with the prime objective of getting Federal money instead
of looking at their State-local relationships.
In Minnesota the legislature has approved a new grant-in-aid pro-
gram that pays up to 50 percent of the local share of any planning
program that includes a complete natural beauty program as part
of the plan. At the same time the State has set in motion a State
regional planning program. A million dollar grant-in-aid program
was also initiated paying up to 50 percent of the costs of any recrea-
tional and natural resource program, including scenic easement,
archeology, historic sites, etc., that is eligible for Federal funds from
any of the various programs. Minnesota, however, has said that all
the projects must be identified as part of a county or regional com-
prehensive plan approved by the State. This approach seems sound
to Minnesota and we commend it to our partners on a Federal basis
for serious consideration.
Mr. GULICK. As was said here by the chairman and by Senator
Muskie and by Laurance Rockefeller in the plenary session,
this roundtable is concerned with ways and means of achieving the
goals which have been presented to us with such flaming enthusiasm
in the President's address on this whole subject.
I come to this as a management engineer, concerned with how
you organize to accomplish the great dreams that you have set your-
self, the goals that you have presented, the enthusiasms that you have
aroused in the American people. Because there is no question about
it, the President has not only aroused the enthusiasm of many other
leaders in this country, he has released a desire, alleviating a hunger
which has been there for years, but which has never had a chance
THE FEDERAL-STATE-LOG AL PARTNERSHIP 49
to focus effectively on a composite program which would produce
results.
What you have to do from the management side is to define your
great goals, then break them down into doable pieces. You have
to break them down into doable pieces and then you examine the
existing apparatus of public and private activity to see to what extent
these various pieces are being carried forward and to what extent
they are in each other's way, and so forth.
Now, you follow these two steps, breaking the goals down into
doable pieces and then examining the existing mechanisms of gov-
ernment and private enterprise and private orientation to see what is
being accomplished. Mr. Edman just talked to us about an extraor-
dinarily effective program which, be it noted, was started four
years ago step by step, taking advantage of Federal aid and Federal
help, and of local action and local enthusiasm. The leaders of the
legislature banded themselves together with the citizens to go to the
public with a program which, they said, in a very conservative State,
has produced the most comprehensive pattern of State, regional,
county, and local planning that we have anywhere in the United
States. This is the answer of rational men dealing with a great
problem.
And, as he indicated, it is very difficult at the present time for the
States to work with the Federal Government on this program be-
cause at so many points the Federal activities are set up on a different
pattern than are State activities.
Now, it is inevitable, as the Senator said, that the structure of gov-
ernmental operations within the States will differ from State to State.
Our county structures are different. Our habits are different. Our
conservation practices differ in the different States. Our natural re-
sources, our natural duties are different. So that the whole thing
is and should be quite varied.
The second point that the Senator makes in approaching this
question of natural beauty and the realization of its values for the
American people is that we are concerned with two things. One is
the activities that affect our resources and make it possible for us
to utilize our natural beauties, developing a quality of administration,
a quality of planning, which elevates and inspires and creates a new
perspective. And to this I would add one more, if I may, and
that is it grows from this idea when I ask you where is natural
beauty, you are going to tell me it is out yonder. I tell you it
50 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
is inside us. It is in you. It is in your mind and in your heart.
A beautiful waterfall is beautiful, provided in your youth you were
taken to picnics by a waterfall and you came to love the beauties
of nature.
I am glad we have our special panel on the subject of education
which will go into all of this. Coming then to this, you've got to
have a center of strategy. It isn't a problem of coordination. We
are going to build highways and we are going to purify water and
we are going to deal with air pollution control and limit advertis-
ing and put some controls on junkyards. But you've got to have a
strategy and for that you need machinery at the Federal level, you
need machinery at the local level, and you need machinery at the
State level. Even if the internal operating patterns are different,
they can work together effectively if you create in each major area
a center of strategy.
Mr. CLARK. It is most pleasurable to be able to talk on something
as happy as natural beauty. This is an opportunity lawyers don't
get too frequently since we are most often concerned with legal
technicalities, civil rights and crime rates.
I am here primarily, I assume, because I have spent four years in
the Lands Division of the Department of Justice and have particular
experience in that connection that might shed some light on the
problems that we are considering this morning.
I should say at the outset that because of the complexities of the
Federal Government, the Lands Division perspective litigation in
court in connection with land and related natural resources is not
ideal from the standpoint of a program of policy consideration. I
like to think first of the relationship between environment and char-
acter. It makes me think of an old Norse saying that the North made
the Viking. I think this has great truth about what concerns us here
today. Justice William Douglas put it in more colloquial terms when
he talked about the mountains of Oregon when he said, "Mountains
make decent men." But he wasn't talking about mountains in
which strip mining and other ravages of civilization had destroyed
the natural beauty.
Government is today the technique available to us for securing
natural beauty. We can talk about natural beauty and we can have
and need all the associations and private organizations interested
in conservation and natural beauty. But when you get 195 million
Americans and concentrate them in our great metropolitan areas,
THE FEDERAL-STATE-LOCAL PARTNERSHIP 51
it is clear that government is the instrument and technique of secur-
ing natural beauty. And this brings us to the first need, in my judg-
ment, which is coordination and cooperation within and among
governments in their planning, programing, and execution to secure
natural beauty.
Coordination within governments, such as the Federal Government
itself, is indeed a very difficult problem. I think it is helpful to think
of Federal land ownership briefly. The United States owns a third
of all the lands in the 50 States 768 million acres and owns 22
percent of all the lands in the 48 contiguous States. This is an im-
mense heritage. It is a heritage that at its height, at the time of the
purchase of Alaska in 1867, consisted of 80 percent of the land.
The values of these lands and their related resources are immense.
The book value of the Federally owned lands and related natural
resources exceeds the national debt. And in my judgment the fair
market value of these resources would exceed the national debt by a
great deal. To illustrate this, the White House, just within a mile of
here, is carried on the books at $1,000. That's what we paid to ac-
quire it. If we look into it, it is worth a little bit more than that.
We are still carrying some millions of acres of Louisiana Purchase at
3 cents an acre, but fortunately none of us can buy the land from
the Federal Government at that price.
I would like to think that this country will devote this remaining
heritage in the form of a trust for the environmental health and
beauty of the future. We are talking about 1 2 percent of the oil and
gas production of the United States on Federal lands. We are talking
about 25 percent of the timber production, and these are not de-
veloped to the extent that other resources in the country are. If we
devoted these resources to the needs of future generations of America
in terms of environmental health and natural beauty, it would be
the highest and best use to which these assets can be put.
In looking at them, though, we have to look at history. We have
7,000 statutes relating to the use, the regulation, the disposition and
the acquisition of Federal lands and they go back over a period of
120 years. Many of them have no relationship to modern needs.
Fortunately we have just created a Federal Public Land Law Re-
view Commission. This Commission will engage in a study of all
the Federal land laws and needs, and natural beauty should be
among its foremost considerations.
We need to think in terms of redistribution of Federal landowner-
52 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
ship. We own 45 percent of California and 64 percent of Idaho.
When you get into the east, this great metropolitan area from here to
Boston, our land ownership is highly inadequate.
If we can bring these resources under control through all these
Federal agencies, for the benefit of our children, we will have an im-
mense opportunity in the future. If we don't and if we continue the
depletion and the nonuse and misuse of these Federal lands, we will
pay a terrible price.
Today conservation has come into its own. Through joint plan-
ning and joint effort, Federal, State, and local, we have a great op-
portunity for improving the natural beauty of this country.
Mr. PENFOLD. The Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Com-
mission, as a major item of its report, recommended establishment of
a Recreation Advisory Council to assure application of high stand-
ards, to achieve full coordination at the Federal level, and to en-
courage these same goals at State and local levels, including the
private sector.
The public is concerned with coordination as it results, or fails to
result, in high standards of accomplishment, and as it provides or fails
to provide clear channels through which the public can effectively
voice its needs and desires, its apprehensions, disappointments, and
complaints. The public couldn't care less about the mechanics for
achieving day-by-day accommodations between competing agencies.
The public mostly sees the lack of meaningful coordination demon-
strated in very real, down-to-earth situations. One arm of govern-
ment drains productive wetlands while another develops wetlands for
the same productive purposes; one arm of government seeks to set
aside areas for natural beauty and human enjoyment while another
bulldozes, or chops, or floods its way through precisely such areas.
There's a long and agonizing list.
The need for the partnership approach among Federal-State-local
levels is obvious. But the partnership must be more than just among
governmental agencies as such. We cannot assume that the vigor
of an idea or the validity of a complaint will survive the long
journey from the citizen through the treatment works and filter
beds of successive layers of bureaucracy. The public in some way
must participate vitally in the policy determination field at all levels
and help provide the basis for essential political push.
There is scant evidence yet that RAC is achieving these goals.
THE FEDERAL-STATE-LOCAL PARTNERSHIP 53
With these things in mind and to beef up the Federal effort toward
these goals I offer the following suggestions:
1. That RAG be given a broader base incorporating natural
beauty as a prime purpose and responsibility, such to be carried on
down and throughout the departments and agencies of the Federal
establishment ;
2. That RAG be given greater stability and stature in the admin-
istration by the appointment of a permanent chairman the Vice
President; and
3. That the President appoint a Citizens' Advisory Committee,
representative of the broad interests of the public, to serve the Presi-
dent and RAG on a continuing basis and to provide a meaningful
focal point for citizen interest and concern.
The President's Water Pollution Control Advisory Board, as one
example, clearly demonstrates this to be an effective device for
bringing vigorous and well informed public opinion into policy
discussions.
The Committee suggested should be small enough so that it can
meet frequently not only in Washington, but more importantly in
the States and communities across the Nation where policy, planning,
and coordination have their real impact on resources and people.
4. That the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation be taken out of the
Department of the Interior and be placed as an independent agency
directly under RAG.
The Federal Government, through the Land and Water Conserva-
tion Fund Act especially, is urging the States to undertake thorough-
going coordination in order to develop truly comprehensive and for-
ward-looking Statewide and outdoor recreation plans and programs.
The Federal establishment can do no less. The magnificence of the
opportunity requires it.
Mr. SMITH. What I want to do is to take an honest look at some
of the facts of life that we face in getting this job done.
I think the first fact of life we have to face is that natural beauty
is largely a philosophical concept and we never in the world are
going to legislate it into being. Civil Rights is something of a
philosophical concept, too, but at least there are some ground rules
in the Constitution, which doesn't say a word about natural beauty.
From this we have to conclude that our forefathers didn't realize
what a mess we were going to make of the place.
All we have to start with here is great enthusiasm on the part of
54 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
the President and considerable acceptance on the part of the people.
We have to utilize that, mold it, parlay it, if you please, into some-
thing with muscle that will make it possible to do this job. That isn't
much to start with. It is not much to start with, contrasted with
the other things that the government and the governmental agencies
all down the line have to do. Their jobs are comparatively simple.
When I build a road I can set up somebody to do that. This is more
difficult. This is the first thing. It is kind of amorphous.
The second fact of life is that we can't set up a line agency in the
Federal Government to go out and do this job. What actually is
going to happen is that virtually all departments of government must
be inveigled somehow into adding a homemade dimension to the
already complicated job they are already having trouble doing. And
then somehow or other we have got to infuse our consciousness of
natural beauty into all the confusion of functions of all the agencies
of 50 States and well over 100,000 localities.
This again is a matter of influence. It is influence with muscle
and this is something new. The third fact of life is that this is essen-
tially a new role for the Government. Since the Government is going
to do this, it means the Federal Government. Probably some new
mechanism will have to be invented to make it work, if it can work.
So what we have done here now is to try to discover where we
start inventing.
The first thing we must have, quite obviously, is something or
somebody or some groups of somebodies in the Federal Government
whose chief function is to set policy, create plans, mediate the in-
numerable problems that are going to develop among the various
levels of government, among people, among business and conserva-
tionists. This in itself is a lifetime job to supplement State tech-
nicians with Federal experience and talent, to promote and encour-
age State action, and to expedite that action in every possible way.
Internally, it should promote coordination among various interested
departments. This suggests that the Federal organization should
be simple, authoritative, and direct-acting.
It demands that the key Federal agency, which is the Recreation
Advisory Council, be uncluttered by departmental bias or interde-
partmental bureaucratic pressures, because this not only interferes
with internal coordination, but disturbs Federal-State relationships
in any comprehensive project. The Council therefore should be
directly responsible to the Office of the President, and it would be
THE FEDERAL-STATE-LOCAL PARTNERSHIP 55
desirable if its chairman were not only a Secretary of one of the par-
ticipating departments. It has been suggested that the Vice Presi-
dent be its chairman, which in many ways would be highly desirable,
especially so long as the Vice President has an active interest in
such matters.
The Council should expand its responsibilities to cover all phases
of beautification as well as recreation, and this would mean that
departments other than those now represented on the Council would
be increasingly involved. The Council should include such depart-
ments, even if only on an associate or part-time basis. The Federal
Power Commission is a case in point; it has literally thousands of
withdrawals on record for potential power sites, and its power of
condemnation can be superior to that of the State in which it wishes
to see something constructed. Whether, where, and how construc-
tion proceeds can be vital to this program.
Simplifying Federal procedures also suggests that the BOR might
become more directly attached to the Council rather than remain as
a Bureau in a participating department. In an independent position,
it would find cooperation with all departments of the government
easier to secure. If the BOR remains essentially a clearinghouse
and dispenser of funds rather than an operating agency or a coor-
dinating force that is, if it coordinates by leadership rather than
directive (and this is inevitable and perhaps desirable) such a
transfer of responsibility would be thoroughly practical.
In the interest of expediting activity in the States and within the
Federal Government, adjusting policies to changing needs, and main-
taining smooth relationships among the Federal Government, the
public, Congress and the States, an Advisory Committee to the
Council should be established by the President, and should periodi-
cally provide reports to the President as well as advising with and
reporting to the Council. This Advisory Committee should consist
of representatives from Congress, of citizens (including businessmen) ,
and of people directly concerned and interested in the problems and
projects of the States and localities. It is highly unlikely that any
formula developed at this conference or by Federal agencies will
be wholly satisfactory over an extended period of time; such a Com-
mittee could call for adjustments in the procedures of all the con-
cerned parties until a satisfactory formula is found and whenever
circumstances require a change, the formula could be changed. In
other words, the Committee could continuously monitor relationships
and expedite adjustments.
56 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
Presently established procedures of the BOR, as well as other
government agencies directly involved in recreation and natural
beauty, prescribe organizational patterns and procedures which
States must follow. While it is necessary to have some uniformity
in State procedures, it must not be forgotten that the ultimate objec-
tive of the Federal Government is to get the job done, to get it done
as effectively and as quickly as possible, and to dispense funds where
and when they are warranted. The States themselves, therefore,
should have more to say about plans and procedures.
This suggests that a continuing State advisory group should have
a hand in working out and expediting procedures. It is conceivable
that this could be done either by having a permanent State advisory
group, working in conjunction with the BOR, or by a subcommittee
of the Advisory Committee. There are assets and liabilities in either
case which need to be analyzed carefully.
The relationships of the municipalities to the State and to the
Federal Government are a matter of concern in this program. It
might be wise to suggest the establishment of an advisory committee
within each State, consisting of representatives of
( 1 ) The State agencies involved ;
(2) The major cities;
(3) Typical municipalities; and
(4) Local representatives of the most directly concerned
Federal agencies.
Such committees would not only clarify Federal-State-municipal
responsibilities and relationships, but would keep the States and
municipalities aware of the possibilities of Federal participation,
since many agencies, in addition to the BOR, are directly concerned
with this problem, and many have funds available for specific types
of projects. BOR representatives could meet with these committees
when possible and could thereby keep a firsthand check on progress.
Because so many Federal agencies are concerned in recreation and
beautification, and have aids available, the BOR should establish a
clearinghouse unit to provide information about procedures and all
departmental aids. In this way, States will be kept aware of all
of the potential Federal participation and support. Running this
down now constitutes a major enterprise on the part of any State
setting out to do it, and the hurdles are many and difficult. Yet the
States are entitled to all the help and all the support they can get;
and since the Federal Government is promoting recreation and beau-
THE FEDERAL-STATE-LOCAL PARTNERSHIP 57
tification, the least it can do is lead the States to places where they
will get the most help and the most support with the least resistance
and the least waste.
Questions and Discussion
Mr. GODDARD. Having the prerogative of the Chairman, I would
like to ask Senator Muskie one question because the Senator could
not be with us yesterday when our panel met informally. In line
with specific recommendations of Mr. Smith and Mr. Penfold,
referred to by others, I would like to get the Senator's concurrence
with this recommendation.
This recommendation would establish a National Council on Nat-
ural Beauty and Recreation comparable to the proposed Council on
the Arts and Humanities. It should supersede the present Recrea-
tion Advisory Council. The panel recommends a permanent, Pres-
identially appointed Chairman within the Federal establishment.
The President should also appoint a Citizens' Advisory Committee on
Natural Beauty and Recreation which shall advise the new National
Council on setting priorities for national policy.
Senator MUSKIE. One thing you ought to bear in mind is that
you rarely get a yes or a no answer, you know. This proposal seems
very similar to that which Senator McGovern and several Senators
are proposing. Senator McGovern's proposal is that there be
created a Resources and Conservation Council within the Executive
Office of the President. Your modification of that, I take it, would
make the Vice President Chairman, and the Council would not
necessarily be within the Executive Office of the President.
I think something like this seems to me about as good a way of
implementing what you are trying to do organizationally as has
been advanced. I think it might be well to evaluate it in the light
of what I understand to be some of the thrusts of the discussion this
morning.
One is, I think, the organization which would try to do this the
organization we are trying to develop here, and I am not speaking
of one monolith, but the kind of Federal organization about which
we are talking ought to serve three functions or purposes. One, to
identify all beauty objectives. And we are talking about beauty
in the broadest possible way conservation, recreation, scenic, qual-
58 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
ities of life so that we ought to have somebody responsible for
identifying all of the beauty objectives.
Now, since these are going to involve conflicting and overlapping
requirements for land and water, then secondly, we have got to find
a way organizationally to resolve the conflicts and establish priorities
in order to make it possible for us to get the wisest possible use
multiple use, if possible of these land and water resources which
are in such diminishing supply in the light of the many demands
made upon them.
Finally, the organizational structure ought to insure continuity
and follow-through. The follow-through is terribly important when
you are talking about something as complex, confusing, and as frus-
trating as government on the three levels in America in 1965.
So that getting back to your Council and a Senator has a
roundabout way of getting to a point getting back to the proposal
for the Council, I think this is a good starting point for discussion.
It may well end up as an important element in the recommendations
of this conference to the President.
While I am answering, may I touch upon just one or two other
points?
We are talking about this one concept in which we are all very
interested the beauty concept, the conservation concept. But
when we are all through talking, this has got to fit somehow into
the total functions of government. When it does, it can get lost, as
so many other worthy causes have been lost. So we have got to
think about making the entire structure of government more effective
also. If we are not wise in establishing the organization for this
particular purpose, we may actually overcomplicate the over-all
structure of government and do a disservice to our purposes rather
than to serve them.
I would like to call your attention to some things that are going
on and some things that are proposed in this over-all area which
ought to be of interest to you.
One, there is in existence the Advisory Commission on Intergov-
ernmental Relations. Now, this Commission has been working very
hard, effectively out of the headlines most of the time on the job
of trying to make the Federal system a more workable and effective
system. And I think that it has done a good job and I think that
many of its proposals haven't received the attention and the action
they ought to.
THE FEDERAL-STATE-LOCAL PARTNERSHIP 59
One of these proposals is now pending in the Congress and relates
to something Mr. Edman had to say. This is the so-called Intergov-
ernmental Cooperation Act of 1965. It does three things. This
legislation would, one, require Federal administrators who have an
impact on metropolitan areas to coordinate their efforts; two, to
require that applications for Federal grants-in-aid which come up
from this local level be reviewed by the planning agencies; three,
that periodically we review all grants-in-aid programs to make sure
that they are serving their original purpose, that they are adapted to
current conditions rather than the conditions under which they were
created, to determine whether or not they ought to be continued at
all, and so on.
Now, here are three very unspectacular, but very important rec-
ommendations. I think we ought to bear them in mind as we con-
sider adding to the total Federal workload, to the total policy load
of the Federal Government, and not only the Federal Government,
but the other two levels. As we consider these organizational recom-
mendations we ought to do so in the context of this total picture. It
is, I assure you, speaking as one who has worked very closely with it,
a very difficult, although a fascinating area in which to try to get
results practical, effective results for the people of the United States
through this tremendous maze of government. This is a challenge
and what it produces is exciting.
Mr. GODDARD. I would like to point out that in our recommen-
dations we did not say the Vice President. We said a Presiden-
tially appointed Chairman. We recognize that the Vice President is
also an extremely busy individual. Someone with authority, we feel,
should be Chairman. A rotating chairmanship of the group is not
the best arrangement.
Mr. SMITH. One comment here. The last sentence in that first
point says, "The President should also appoint a Citizens' Advisory
Committee on Natural Beauty and Recreation which shall advise the
new National Council on setting priorities for national policy."
I think that is fine. They should help set priorities, but also, I think
that they can serve a great purpose in expediting action throughout
the country. I don't think you ought to build a fence around them.
I believe that this Committee if it is a nationally appointed com-
mittee, a busy committee can help to continue to get the job done
and I think it is essential.
779-59565 5
60 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
JOHN J. LOGUE. My group is concerned with Federal-State-local
cooperation; namely, with an expressway in our area. My question
is this. In order to stop this expressway, which is called the Blue
Route, we have been contacting both the State and Federal govern-
ments. But our criticisms at the Federal level are always referred
to the Bureau of Public Roads and at the State level we are always
referred to the State Highway Department. Not surprisingly we
get satisfaction from neither of these road-oriented agencies. Now
in the civil rights area Federal Government contracts are reviewed
for discrimination against individuals by the Vice President's Com-
mission. Couldn't we have some kind of review of highway pro-
posals, both on the State and Federal level, for discrimination against
beauty?
In a State like Pennsylvania, could not this be done by the Secre-
tary of Forests and Waters, and at the Federal level by the Secretary
of the Interior?
Mr. GODDARD. There is another panel which is talking directly to
this, but conceivably this could be one of the functions of the council
that we propose.
Senator MUSKIE. I might also put in a pitch for S. 561, the Inter-
governmental Cooperation Act of 1965, which is aimed at this very
kind of problem. We have had testimony which has brought in just
this problem and justification for the approach. It is the purpose of
that bill to stimulate review not only by directly related agencies, but
also by other programs.
RICHARD LEONARD. I have a very brief, but I think excellent
example of local, State, and Federal cooperation out on the Pacific
Coast.
Just a couple of weeks ago we signed contracts to purchase $2.5
million of redwoods and a superb ocean beach along the Pacific
Ocean. The State of California is cooperating in that in furnishing
a half a million dollars. They are also planning additional coopera-
tion later on in the acquisition program.
Now President Johnson has approved and recommended a Red-
wood National Park in the area which requires Federal par-
ticipation. Since most of the redwoods are pretty much in the State's
hands at the present time, and need seriously to be augmented with
additional lands and additional redwoods to make them really su-
perb, we have to work out cooperation between the two agencies.
THE FEDERAL-STATE-LOG AL PARTNERSHIP 61
There are possibilities along the lines of excellent cooperation be-
tween the Forest Service in the Department of Agriculture and
the National Park Service at Cedar Grove area of Kings Canyon
National Park where the National Park Service has administered
the Forest Service lands on a very peaceful basis for about 10 or 15
years.
Another excellent example is the new Ice Age Scientific Research
in Wisconsin where State parks will be working in a very cooperative
program with the Federal Government. We are hoping that similar
cooperation can be worked out in the redwood area and provide
a superb national park for all the people of the United States.
CHARLES W. ELIOT II. I would like to make a comment on
the Senator's point about the other advisory councils being under con-
sideration. It would be very desirable, it seems to me, to combine
them all into a single organization.
The second point, that instead of having them just another in-
terdepartmental committee, from our 10 year experience with the
National Planning effort in the 1930's, it is absolutely essential that
this should be in the Executive Office of the President.
HENRY WARD. I would like to make this observation and give this
short background to qualify myself as an expert before I ask a
question.
I was Commissioner of Conservation for eight years. I was a mem-
ber of the Water Pollution Commission, and I have been Commis-
sioner of Highways for five years.
I was recently arguing with one of my friends in the Federal
service about the creation of another Federal agency in connection
with administration. I was arguing that there was a grave danger
in creating another Federal bureaucracy. He said, "Well, you al-
ready have a Federal bureaucracy, the Bureau of Public Roads.
There couldn't be anything worse than that." I said, "Yes, there
could be; there could be two of them."
Now, the question that I want to raise is this. This Council that
you propose to create, would that be advisory advisory to the
President? Is it going to make recommendations to the President
which would then be transmitted to Congress for enactment into law,
or do you propose a Federal administrative agency that would get
involved in giving directions to the State agencies in all these various
fields that relate to this whole subject of natural beauty?
62 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
Mr. SMITH. I don't think any of us has any idea of setting up
another line agency that you would have to deal with. This group,
whatever it is, if it is a recreation advisory committee, or whatever
it is, would be advisory an advisory body but we hope it would
listen to advice. We hope it will advise the Bureau of Public Roads
rather than you. It would get to the Bureau of Public Roads and
needle them into considering the beauty aspects of a project.
Your relationship with the Bureau would remain the same unless
there is something within your own State that you have to key into
an over-all plan. But this has nothing to do with the Federal
bureaucracy.
Mr. WARD. Let me make the observation; this is really perti-
nent. You are talking about something, as Mr. Gulick pointed out
you have to be specific in terms of administration. You have to
face up to what you need to do. You are going to make a serious
mistake in approaching this if you are going to set up another Fed-
eral agency to needle or advise without a clear-cut understanding
as to authority.
When you are talking about muscle, I think those of us who
know something about government look to Congress to determine
policy, to pass laws. Congress ought to do this. If the Federal Gov-
ernment is going to spell out specifics in relationship to this whole
subject of national beauty, this is not a vague thing. Congress ought
to pass laws that are specific.
Mr. SMITH. I am trying to say we don't have that authority or any
of that authority.
DON HUMMEL. I would like to make a proposal which I think
ties together some of the objections that have been made by the
speakers here today. This is not a new proposal. It has been made
before.
We have a National Security Council made up of the heads of
various agencies that are responsible for national security in the
international field. The National Advisory Council should not be
separate or just advisory. It should be made up of the various de-
partments that are involved with the development of the facilities in
the United States. We should have a National Advisory Council
chaired by the Vice President of the United States responsible to
the President, made up of the Secretary of the Interior, the
Secretary of Agriculture, and the head of the Housing Agency. And
THE FEDERAL-STATE-LOCAL PARTNERSHIP 63
by the way, the big gap here, the thing we are missing is a Depart-
ment of Urban Affairs and the representation of the people in our
urban communities.
If you had a Department of Urban Affairs and a group of cabinet
officers I am not trying to cover all of them made into a National
Advisory Council chaired by the Vice President, responsible to the
President, you would not separate the day-to-day functions. You
cannot separate day-to-day law enforcement and lawmaking func-
tions and create beauty any more than a city council can turn over
to an advisory group recommendations for a plan for your city and
separate that from the day-to-day function of zoning. It is a day-to-
day function and should be kept in that area.
Mrs. PAUL G. GALLAGHER. Last year Mr. Penfold's committee
sent out information about a directive given by the Bureau of Public
Roads that any design that goes through parks should be cleared
with the responsible persons. As you have heard many times this
has been a major difficulty.
I would like to know if Senator Muskie, who seems to be aware
of the ramifications, has heard of any time when the parks won over
the engineers?
Senator MUSKIE. I think one of the toughest concepts to put over
to a highway engineer is to convince him that a road is something
more than a straight line between two points.
I will say this, that there has been, I think, small, perhaps too
small, victories over the straight liners. But in my State, for ex-
ample, we have finally, over the last ten years made the highway
department itself conscious of the need for beauty in highway de-
sign for incorporating picnic areas, for examples. I think that is
what is needed to be done here. I think Mayor Hummers point
is very good, to get his new dimension incorporated into the operat-
ing policies of these agencies.
I think Mr. Smith made this point that these national councils,
these national policy proposers or makers, can set the broad guide-
lines and the great goals. But these goals have got to be converted
into actual policy for operating agencies. I think this is what we
must do with our highway departments. We must make them see
and understand that they must be implementers of beauty themselves
because to try an alternative way of dealing with it would be to force
every Commission's policy to be reviewed by some over-all appellate
64 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
agency. I think that's wrong. I think you have got to get this
beauty concept bred into the agencies and a part of their policy.
BENJAMIN LINSKY. I appreciate that air pollution has been ruled
out of the discussions here at this conference. But in the proposal
for a National Council, this problem of air pollution, I think be-
comes important especially when health considerations are not pres-
ent. It is not much good to have a lovely vista to see if you cannot
really see it because of manmade haze.
Would your National Council as proposed incorporate the quality
factor of air pollution control?
Mr. GODDARD. I would think it would. I note we did not say
to put the existing Recreation or Advisory Council up under the
President's jurisdiction, but in a new Council. We want to expand
it to include the types of endeavors that you are discussing. I would
say the answer is yes, we would want to include it.
EDWIN MICHAELIAN. There are 3,043 counties in the United
States and the county government is one instrument that can be
used to coordinate the efforts of all local municipalities. In con-
sidering any program with respect to natural beauty, air pollution,
water pollution abatement, or whatever it may be, please don't over-
look the county. It is one of the coming tools that can be used to
marshal local opinion and get action.
Mr. GODDARD. The county is included in our recommendations.
A DELEGATE. I have a suggestion that I would like to make per-
haps in the area to be worked out between the States.
I come from a metropolitan area. There is a great deal of natural
history to be looked at in city areas. The fact is that Americans
are lazy and haven't been out to Fire Island, where the great
holly forests are still available and can be seen. What I would
suggest is this : that there be a series of institutes of advanced study
such as you have at Princeton, but in the area of conservation and
natural resources and that one of these centers be set up as a great
clearinghouse, a center of public relations. The Hudson Valley
is a site that might be recommended.
I would suggest that these centers or institutes get together from all
disciplines teams of scientists, economists, archeologists, historians,
botanists, biologists, and even artists and poets and put them to
work in a creative conservation area such as the Hudson River Val-
THE FEDERAL-STATE-LOCAL PARTNERSHIP 65
ley, say within a hundred-mile radius of New York City. This would,
of course, extend into Connecticut and parts of Pennsylvania, New
Jersey, and New York. We have many like this throughout the
whole United States that have to be worked on and these institutes
could be put to work. There is a precedent, the Palisades Parks
Commission, in which two States have cooperated in such a project.
Institutes likes this could be established all over the United States to
further explore President Johnson's concept of creative conservation.
Mr. GODDARD. I think there is one started now.
Hon. LUCILLE PINKERTON. First, would you please consider some
kind of model legislation that would help us establish on the State
level and to assist our municipalities and local governments? I think
this should come as a suggestion from this panel so that I can better
represent my people.
A. K. MORGAN. I would like to suggest to the gentleman from
the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference that the island he spoke
of is being seriously considered by this Commission as an addition to
Bear Mountain. Will he please keep hands off.
GLESTER HINDS. As I see it, to enhance the beauty the govern-
ment should enact legislation to remove ugliness. The areas that
have more than their share of ugliness shall be allocated funds to
bring them up to the standard of beauty which is expected of that
particular area. However, that is not the case. There seems to be a
kind of inertia that prevents governments from moving more rapidly
to correct these conditions.
Therefore frustration sets in and ugliness becomes a way of life.
The government's poverty program is moving in the right direction.
It should be tailored not to stigmatize any citizen because he or she
is poor, but should become a motivating factor to improve the stand-
ard of living of our citizens and thereby stimulate his interest to work
in the physical beautification of his neighborhood. This investment
by government will be repaid by decreased costs in the operation of
many institutions. Rebuild rundown existing neighborhoods
through construction of new buildings, rehabilitate and conserve old
buildings, utilize the vest pocket approach to uprooting on a block
these are the things I am talking about.
In other words, in blocks where they have good houses and there
are a few decayed ones, the bad should be uprooted and the good
66 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
buildings maintained. There should be strict enforcement of hous-
ing laws with a proviso not to put a financial squeeze on the small
property owners. We need to stimulate more interest in on-the-job
training for high-paying jobs for older employees in private and
Federal employment. To stimulate more interest in tree planting
and better street and building lighting. To stress good character,
honesty, integrity, good American traditions. To be a good neigh-
bor. To take pride in self, family and assist in building and main-
taining a good neighborhood.
I would suggest someone be appointed on a Federal level to
direct urban activities in connection with running urban participa-
tion action programs.
I think, gentlemen, we have a great stimulus from the President
and we should not take a negative approach. We should take a
very positive approach and use of the Office of the President directly
to focus attention on making America beautiful.
Mrs. META GRACE KEEBLER. I would like to say that we have
many wonderful programs already being carried out over the coun-
try. Having worked with the Department of Agriculture for 11
years in the States, I am very familiar with the programs that already
are underway and also with the thousands of other farms and garden
organizations that are very active and very anxious to help in this
wonderful program.
It is the most valuable and marvelous opportunity, I believe, of
any we have had. I am thrilled over it. Everybody wants to
enter into it and help in some way. I think that freedom of the
States to select projects should not be limited. Each State, I believe,
should be permitted to select the projects it believes are most out-
standing, as for example, the wonderful new park that has just been
set up in Alabama called Horse Shoe Bend Park. The Department
of the Interior is building roads and making it a museum. The
river there ought to be beautified and there are just thousands of
ways this could be done. Every project in every State has something
that farm and garden organizations can enter into. Please, try not
to limit the power of each State and county, but encourage that.
Statements Submitted for the Record
ED DE MARS. One additional point I would like to have con-
sidered before final recommendations are made: Where the military
has property along a scenic highway, local or otherwise, they can
THE FEDERAL-STATE-LOCAL PARTNERSHIP 67
be the key to the success or failure of the entire program. In plan-
ning their program of improvements, they should also consider the
scenic values involved. It is therefore respectfully suggested that a
closer relationship be established between the local agencies and the
military to better accomplish this desirable end.
JOSEPH A. DIETRICH. A recommendation of the panel was that
an organization be set up to be named the "Committee on Natural
Beauty and Recreation." My opinion and the opinion of others
I talked with indicate that the interest and success of the conference
was entirely due to the title assigned to this conference "Confer-
ence on Natural Beauty." I feel that adding the word "Recreation"
as part of the proposed new name would deviate from the meaning
and feelings of those attending and supporting the conference.
Recreation is supported and encompassed in many of our gov-
ernmental agencies at present and is associated in the minds of many
of our citizens as active, rather than passive recreation. I sincerely
believe that if the word "Recreation" is used in this instance, re-
actions would be forthcoming from other interests such as those
concerned with pollution, etc.
The credit for the conference should be to those who originated
the theme and, therefore, I recommend that we not pollute the
original title of "Natural Beauty," but allow it to remain as a mark
of appreciation to those who conceived the idea.
MICHAEL R. FAGAN. Much has been said about the value of local
zoning and/or the intervention of the Federal Government on the
local level in zoning whenever the local level legislative bodies have
failed to adequately zone so as to control urban or roadside blight.
I am diametrically opposed to the intervention of Federal participa-
tion in local land-use control. The Federal Government is without
merit in this area, while on the other hand, it could make a valuable
contribution to achieve the desired end by encouraging the estab-
lishment or improvement of local land-use control through zoning
by any one of several methods previously mentioned to the panel.
While we cannot ignore the responsibility of local government to
zone nor the absence of adequate land-use control, it is an improper
conclusion I think that we, the people, would support the introduc-
tion of the Federal Government into an area historically reserved
to the local government.
68 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
Mrs. RICHARD B. GRIPPING. Frequent mention has been made
of the lack of coordination and diversity of aims of the Federal agen-
cies charged with administering aspects of conservation programs.
I would like to give two illustrations of overlapping and nondirected
functions and aims of Federal agencies in the conservation field
and make a suggestion directed to outdated public land policy in
the West and the part a ref raming of this policy might play in improv-
ing intergovernmental cooperation and coordination.
In Montana, where at least 40 percent of the land is in the public
domain and where the headwaters of the two major main stem
rivers rise, historic and current conflicting aims and overlapping
functions of agencies in the Departments of Agriculture, Interior, and
Defense become highly visible in the field. While dozens of
examples are available, two current illustrations of bureaus and
agencies engaged in jurisdictional disputes and overlooking emphasis
on the preservation of natural beauty would suffice:
1. The Bureau of Reclamation proposal for a Sun Butte dam
on the upper forks of the Sun River represents the first major inva-
sion and nullification of the Wilderness Act of 1964. The proposals
have been found impractical, infeasible, or destructive of wildlife
and the purposes of the Wilderness Act by the Corps of Engineers,
the Montana Fish and Game Commission, some officials of the Forest
Service and most local volunteer conservation groups. On the
other hand, proposals are supported by the local chamber of com-
merce in the hope that a dam might provide some flood control.
The proposed dam would inundate or render unusable for wil-
derness purposes approximately 54,000 acres of the Bob Marshall
Wilderness area. It would destroy the habitual calving grounds,
nurseries and migration routes of the Sun River elk herd one of
the last remaining (although dwindling) major herds in the Nation.
The arguments used by the Bureau favoring dam construction in
the Sun Butte area are specious and use the damaging 1964 floods
on the Sun River as a wedge to find local favor. An irrigation
dam, which is proposed, cannot, by its nature, contribute significantly
to spring flood control. In a time of seemingly insoluble farm sur-
pluses, bringing extra acres under irrigation seems questionable at
best. The possible benefits from the dam do not weigh well in
the balance with the initial encroachment of the purposes of the
Wilderness Act, nor with the Act's philosophy that neither special
private interests nor government itself should be permitted to despoil
the few remaining wild areas held in perpetuity for posterity.
THE FEDERAL-STATE-LOCAL PARTNERSHIP 69
2. The Corps of Engineers' plans for big dam development of
the upper Missouri between Fort Benton and Fort Peck meet much
the same objections. This length of the upper Missouri is the last
200 mile stretch of a main stem river in the continental United
States that is almost entirely in its natural historic sites, and untouched
beauty. The proposal of the Corps does not include a need for
flood control nor irrigation. The power from hydroelectric dams
is not needed regionally, and the costs of transmission in tying such
projected power into the midwestern grid are prohibitively high.
Main local proponents of the proposal are local rural electric co-
operatives who hope that public power from these sites would be
less expensive than that produced by the private power company
in the area.
Original planning was intended to be a model of interagency
planning for river basin development. However, when the Corps,
the Bureau of Reclamation, the National Park Service, the Soil
Conservation Service and the Bureau of Land Management (to men-
tion only a few and not including the State agencies involved ) could
not agree on the purposes or means of developing the river, the
Corps bolted from the interagency plans and is singly advocating
its big dam proposals.
If the proposed dams are built, much great natural beauty will be
permanently lost, without compensating benefit to the area or to the
Nation. The Park Service plans for development of this stretch of
the Missouri into a Lewis and Clark Wilderness Waterway would
preserve a uniquely beautiful natural resource in keeping with the
long-term values held in great importance by the conference in sav-
ing and restoring portions of the Nation for the recreation, educa-
tion and inspiration of future generations.
The suggestion that I wish to include in the proceedings is not an
original one and is directed toward making it possible for the State
governments in the great plains and intermountain States to play a
partnership role in developing beautiful recreational and natural
resources.
If the Federal Government saw fit to return to the States an equi-
table reimbursement in lieu of taxes for the great amount of Federal
land in the States, the opportunities for the States to assume a part in
planning and developing accessible sites of natural beauty would be
greatly improved. One of the important reasons why State govern-
ments have been unable to share planning responsibilities, or to ini-
70 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
tiate them, has been the simple unavailability of funds from a small
tax base to cover anything but the most pressing and fundamental
responsibilities of the States.
Presently the bureaus and agencies charged with operating and
improving public lands do share fees and charges emanating from
the users of public lands with States and localities. The amounts
received, however, do not compensate for the reduction in size of tax
base in those counties and States with high percentages of public
lands. While agreeing that much of the public land in these areas is
not very valuable for agricultural or industrial purposes, and could
not be given away under the Homestead Acts, and that such payment
in lieu of taxes would represent a direct subsidy to State governments,
such a payment would seem still to represent a real effort on the part
of the Federal Government to preserve the principles of shared plan-
ning and federalism and make it possible for western States to
accept responsibility for planning and development.
Dr. DAVID PAYNTER. I was particularly interested in the signifi-
cant role in the area of Federal, State and local partnership being
undertaken by the Job Corps of the Office of Economic Opportunity.
Through the establishment of the Conservation Centers for Job
Corps youth, we are placing maximum emphasis on reclamation
and preservation of our natural resources and beauty. We have
found that the youth joining this program have all too frequently
been subjected to dull, dreary, and depressing environmental con-
ditions, and therefore, lack a proper appreciation and understand-
ing of the importance of their heritage, which may be found in the
natural resources of our country.
Therefore, our first effort has been to insure that the Conserva-
tion Centers counteract prior environmental deficiencies by provid-
ing attractive, stimulating, and functional housing and recreational
facilities. We are insisting on good planning and design of facilities
to insure a proper environment compatible with strict economy.
The camps are keyed to a well-rounded education with each corps-
man exposed to reading material stressing the needs and benefits of
natural beauty and resources. As to practical application, corpsmen,
through proper guidance and instruction, are charged with the re-
sponsibility of beautifying their own immediate areas through land-
scaping and creation of greenbelt areas within each center.
The program has an interlocking relationship with Federal, State,
and local authorities each being in harmony with the needs of com-
THE FEDERAL-STATE-LOG AL PARTNERSHIP 71
munity action programs. On a regional basis, we are already
programing the conservation corpsman's assistance and support to
the beautification and restoration of such historic areas as Harper's
Ferry. We can see a major role for our youth in the Appalachian
program. As to the individual community, it is reasonable to ex-
pect that the services and support of corpsmen will be requested,
particularly as they are able to beautify their centers to the degree
that they become models of good planning and inexpensive beauti-
fication. Simply, our primary goal and objective is the development
of our greatest natural resource; namely, our youth. Our youth,
in turn, are being redirected to reclaim their natural heritage
the mountains, forests, meadows, lakes, and streams that greeted
our forefathers.
THOMAS B. SATTER WHITE. While the questions relating to
"Water and Waterfronts," "The Design of the Highway," "Un-
derground Installation of Utilities," "Automobile Junkyards" and
other related issues are naturally important, the planning of new
urban and suburban developments by competent and effectual
authority dwarfs other considerations by comparison.
In my own community, Lexington, Ky., there is an excellent test
tube example of what is taking place throughout the Nation: the
unnecessary destruction of magnificent natural terrain by snowball-
ing industrial encroachments and the concomitant housing develop-
ments. Local resistance to the pressures of these interests has com-
pletely broken down, or, better put, has about as much chance as
a colony of beavers attempting to dam the Niagara River.
There must come from the Federal Government strong assistance
in some form which can control, plan, and direct the growth of
the cities in such a way that future America will not be an utterly
impossible place in which to live.
The interests involved in exploiting the countryside for their own
financial gain are so strong that no regulatory entities at the city,
county, or State levels can possibly oppose them successfully.
Dr. J. HAROLD SEVERAID. An important need here is for State
and local governments to so zone, or freeze the price of land, or to
tax 100 percent on the profits, so as to discourage speculators from
inflating the value of land in which a higher echelon of govern-
ment has expressed a real or potential proprietary interest. If lesser
levels of government fail to do this, Federal laws should be passed
72 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
which would make it mandatory. No one has either a God-given
or man-given right to profit purely as a result of the accident of
location rather than his own ingenuity or initiative. Congress
should freeze the price of land in which it is interested before it
starts debating whether it will or will not buy it as a national park,
for example. Short of this, it should itself tax 100 percent on the
inflated purchase price.
Another type of legislation needed is that which would put teeth
into the designation "National Historical Monument." It does little
good for the government to so designate a house, building, river,
or site, if it has no power to protect such an object or site from the
despoilers. An object so honored should be worthy of the full
protection of government regardless of ownership.
HAROLD F. WISE. Throughout the conference, constant refer-
ences were made to the necessity for increased attention to regional
planning. The report of Mr. Bemiss, chairman of the panel on
the New Suburbia made particular recommendations to this end.
Other panelists urged similar action.
The environment around San Francisco Bay, for example, is a
single, organic environment, even though it contains nine counties
and 83 cities, to say nothing of the untold hundreds of special purpose
districts.
The Detroit metropolitan area contains 214 local general purpose
governments, including six counties.
This pattern can be repeated over and over again in every metro-
politan area in the country.
Individual actions of individual, independent local governments,
without the identification of common cause or the opportunity for
common regional action, can only continue the present visual and
emotional chaos as among local governments so prevalent in our
metropolitan areas today.
However, regional planning acting solely in an advisory capacity
is not enough. Some form of regional decision making machinery
must be devised if the organic unity that is the region is to be recog-
nized and have the opportunity to have an effect.
I have four recommendations to this end :
1. S. 561, The Intergovernmental Cooperation Act of 1965, must
be passed. This is really very mild legislation, calling only for a
report from a regional planning agency on applications for Federal
loans and grants in specific programs. This proposed law should
THE FEDERAL-STATE-LOCAL PARTNERSHIP 73
ultimately be strengthened, in the manner of the Highway Act of
1962, to make a regional planning and decision making process a
requirement for any Federal loan or grant assistance.
Regional planning and decision making should be accomplished
by a regional agency composed of local city and county elected
officials, who have direct and personal political responsibility for
the development and condition of the regional environment. Ad-
visory citizen planning commissions or committees of planners,
engineers or other administrative officers cannot make political de-
cisions, hence, the requirement for representation by elected officials
of local general governments.
2. Planning funds should be made available for governmental
decision making or organizational studies as a part of a comprehen-
sive regional development planning process.
3. The establishment of the requirement that all regional de-
velopment planning financed by section 701 funds (Housing Act)
include an element of the comprehensive plan on the regional land-
scape and regional beautification, including a section on the preser-
vation and use of areas of regional historic significance.
4. Since local governments are the creation of State governments,
thought should be given to the requirement of State planning and
coordination, which would identify and relate the State's interest
to regional interest, and in turn both to the Federal interest, all as
a condition to the continued use of the many, many Federal pro-
grams administered through the States.
These steps will help the States and the localities to begin the
long road toward regional decision making and action as the popu-
lation in metropolitan areas doubles over the decades just ahead.
JACK WOOD. I wish to suggest the following:
1. That all States receiving Federal funds under the local plan-
ning assistance program (sec. 701 of the Housing Act of 1954,
as amended) be required to prepare and adopt a comprehensive
State plan for physical development. Provision should be made
for periodic review and revision, when necessary.
2. That the States should impose zoning jurisdiction over the
counties, as in the State of Hawaii. Such zoning jurisdiction should
be imposed on the counties only to the degree necessary, leaving
purely local matters to local governments. For example, the State
could determine the principal uses of land and prescribe regula-
tions for, say, land to be used for urban purposes, conservation, and
74 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
for agriculture. Once established, as are urban districts, the local
government would have jurisdiction. Conservation has traditionally
been basically a State function and should be regulated on a state-
wide basis. Planning and zoning in the agricultural areas should be
vested in the county authorities subject to the regulations adopted
by the State.
The purpose of the above recommendation is to provide for the
highest and best use of land, which can only be done on a state-
wide basis, to assure its retention in that use and to lessen the entre-
preneural and other pressures on local governments.
CHAPTER 5
THE TOWNSGAPE
10:30 a.m., Monday, May 24
The Chairman, Mr. BACON. Those of us who are here together
are very conscious of the fact that we are in company of an extremely
distinguished group of people. It is not our objective simply to stand
here and tell you what ought to be done, but rather, in company
with you, to prepare as specific and purposeful recommendations as
we can for discussion with the President tomorrow and, through him,
with the American people.
The panel members, in reviewing their task, were impressed and
concerned about the magnitude of the problem in cities with which
we are attempting to deal and the inadequacies of the resources and
manpower that can be brought to bear in connection with it.
At the same time, I would like to say, as a man who is rooted deeply
in a local situation, that already the President's Message on Natural
Beauty and the fact of the holding of this conference are extremely
powerful stimuli to thinking at the level of the city government.
Mayor Tate called me to his office in City Hall in Philadelphia on
Friday and told me that, in addition to the special committee which
he is in the process of setting up for the explicit purpose of carrying
into action the concept of the President's message, and in addition to
the specific program for the planting of trees along the banks of the
river for the beautification of the part of Philadelphia which is seen
by everybody, he had decided to ask the Fairmount Park Commission
immediately to institute a program for the planting of 2,000 street
trees in the 12 Community Action Council areas of the antipoverty
program.
Members of the Panel on The Townscape were Edmund Bacon
(Chairman), Garrett Eckbo, Gordon Gray, Frederick Gutheim,
Calvin Hamilton, Mrs. Fred Mauntel, William Slayton, and Karel
Yasko. Staff Associate was David Carlson.
779-595
75
76 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
This program will be carried out only upon application by local
neighborhood groups who want trees in their particular area. The
Fairmount Park Commission will establish criteria to determine
policies on which these trees will be provided for the citizens. This
explicit, albeit humble, act will assert our concern about improving
the environment of all parts of the city, including the least privileged.
This relates to a broad problem of which we are conscious in
approaching the total question in the city of both the strengths and
the shortcomings of the urban renewal program as it is now being
administered.
We are concerned because, with the best will in the world, the
actual products of the urban renewal program up to the present
moment fall short of the mark. Too much is being spent in too small
an area and too many of the people who should be receiving the
benefits of urban renewal are not, because of the highly concen-
trated aspects of the program at the present time.
This concept of the immediate improvement of the environment
on a broad basis by the proposed tree planting program is obviously
not the whole answer, but it is a step to bridge the gap, to move into
positive action, to give hope and encouragement to people in all parts
of the city and particularly in depressed areas.
There is a kind of phenomenon which I might call the administra-
tive hardening of the arteries which goes about something like this:
The local communities become stirred up about a problem as, for
example, they were with the problem of their blighted areas. They
make representation to the Congress. There are hearings and Con-
gress adopts legislation such as the National Housing Act.
Then the agencies are set up to administer the program and the
program gets underway. In a massive problem such as this, the
experience in the field of the local community uncovers the fact that
the program, as currently administered, fails to meet precisely the
objectives established for it. Therefore, on the feedback principle,
which is the basis of all scientific thought and all automation, there
should be a constant review, reevaluation, change in the policies in
which the Federal program is readjusted so that it more and more
nearly meets the reality of the problem in this field.
The horrible phenomenon is that the cities, the communities, and
the local agencies applying for funds to the Federal Government, are
so afraid of offending the Federal people and therefore not getting
money, that there is great reluctance to suggest any revisions. This
THE TOWNSGAPE 77
is one of the phenomena which we must take into account. We, in
Philadelphia, are deeply resolved that we will, in cooperation with
the Federal Government, see to it that the benefits of urban renewal
and of the city beautification programs are more widely dispersed
throughout all parts of the city needing them than they are at the
present.
I feel very strongly, and the panel backs me in this, that the urban
beautification section of title VIII of the housing program now before
the Congress can become a very important instrument for the accom-
plishment of this objective, and this panel urges that this legislation
be adopted in the form in which it is presently before the Congress
and that it be supported by adequate funds and that it be admin-
istered in a very creative fashion.
In Philadelphia over the last several years we have developed the
concept that we will move into the most depressed areas of the city ;
that we will establish in the center of these areas oases of beauty
parks and squares next to beloved monuments and landmarks which
will serve as rallying points for neighborhood pride and identification
and, in the process, identification with the city as a whole.
Our first effort in this regard, our greenway in the Southwest
Temple area, had a magnificent plan which centered on a small civic
square, but the budget of the Housing Authority was such that our
park was paved with blacktop and had only a few, poor little locust
trees on it.
I believe profoundly that if this title VIII of the Housing and
Community Development Act of 1965, providing for urban beauti-
fication, is administered in a creative fashion, not to extend the pro-
gram but to intensify and develop real quality, real beauty, real in-
spiration in the projects which are already underway in the cities,
that we can lift this kind of thing up to the level of excitement; take
it up over the hump so that it does stir people.
Our next great effort was in Society Hill in Philadelphia. Here,
with the full support of the Federal agencies and the city, we created
great beauty in this section of middle- and upper-income families. It
is a matter of great importance to me that when this Society Hill
project was visited by groups from the most depressed areas of the
city, they did not respond with jealousy or resentment. It was exactly
the opposite. They said, "This is great." They were proud that this
was in their city and they said they wanted this in their neighborhood
also.
78 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
So we are going into our third greenway, a system of garden
footpaths threaded through the Mill Greek area, so that the children
can go to school and the mothers can go to shop along this con-
tinuous tree-lined footway, suddenly made possible by the fact of the
collapse of an old sewer.
Just before I left, I reviewed the plans of this with Robert Craw-
ford, Commissioner of Recreation. He has a fine architect, but the
budget is only allowing for blacktop.
I tell you in definite civic terms that if this urban beautification part
of title VIII can be brought to bear in this project, right in the
middle of this depressed neighborhood and, instead of blacktop, the
walk can have some handsome stone paving, decent trees that will
make a fine effect, sculpture, fountains, something to be proud of,
we will have made an impact on the very basic question of the loss
of morale and the discouragement and loss of hope among our less
privileged citizens. By a dispersal of this kind of program, distributed
throughout the entire area as a source of inspiration, a positive asser-
tion of beauty, we can create new centers of identification and new
centers of relationship with the city as a whole and we will have estab-
lished the fact that the Great Society is for everybody.
Mr. GRAY. Townscapes of tomorrow must have character and
beauty rooted in nature and built upon those man-made resources
accumulated throughout the year. My burden is that it makes no
sense to destroy the best of what we already have while working to
create an environment that will give inspiration to our people.
Organized concern for our tangible heritage began in 1859 when
ladies from every State purchased and saved Mount Vernon.
Through a limited but dedicated number of individuals and organiza-
tions linked together through The National Trust for Historic Preser-
vation this concern of thinking Americans has spread across the
United States. Initially the focus was on the homes of the great
and the places where political and military history were made.
Now, landmarks of beauty, good design and neighborhood character
are also being recognized and are assuming their places of importance
in the townscape.
The success of these efforts, like the number of people involved,
has been too limited. There have been too few leaders, too few
dollars, and far too many great buildings and places destroyed or
ignored.
THE TOWN SCAPE 79
The citizen oriented battles to save a great Federal building in St.
Louis, a historical park in New Jersey, a Victorian Mansion in Iowa,
indicate that now is the time when leadership can do what must be
done. President Johnson has provided the inspiration and suggested
the method.
Renewed public awareness of the problems of a rootless, ugly
America augers well. Basic is the need to know what exists and
what is worth keeping. Once identified, sympathetic means of
ownership must be established.
New and imaginative uses must be devised for the worthy structures
that are to be found in almost any city.
A broad educational program dwarfing current efforts is manda-
tory. This must be conceived to generate wide public participation.
It must infiltrate the collective consciousness of every public and
private agency to bring into focus an obligation to the citizenry for
an attractive environment.
As part of the creative endeavor for monuments of tomorrow, this
awareness must be so indelibly marked on the subconsciousness of
each individual and agency that its necessity is accepted and de-
manded as categorically as safety and cleanliness.
The National Trust stands ready actively to participate in this
total effort and to work toward an acceptable future urban environ-
ment of quality, distinction and continuing individuality in the de-
veloping society and history of America. As the only private non-
profit organization chartered by the Congress to labor in the land-
mark vineyard, it accepts its enlarging obligations.
Let me suggest a few specifics variously involving government at
all levels as well as private organizations and citizens.
Let us have a national survey to inventory landmarks of all types
and grades of historic, architectural and unique community value.
Certify these with accompanying legal protection for those so cer-
tified. We should continue to develop and protect historic districts
in our urban areas. Compensation should be paid to private owners
for losses incurred in preserving certified landmarks. Other devices
should include tax relief (inheritance, income, personal and corpo-
rate, property, admissions) and scenic easements. Restraining cov-
enants should be placed on historic properties; and an increasing
number of them should be brought into public ownership. The
FHA bank loan system should be revised. Zoning ordinances need
strengthening. Machinery to veto government expenditures which
80 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
would result in destroying landmarks is essential; and I know of no
government agency with money to spend which has not been destruc-
tive in this way.
State and local governments should be assisted by State and Fed-
eral loans or matching grants. Eminent domain should be evoked for
protection rather than destruction. Favorable governmental ad-
ministrative policies should be codified and enacted into legislation.
Better communication and coordination should be established within
branches of the Federal Government and with private groups. Fed-
eral support and assistance should be given the National Trust as
recommended by the President in his Message on Natural Beauty
and unanimously approved by its Board of Trustees. A program is
needed to guide adaptive uses, and to stimulate private philanthropy.
It makes no sense to destroy the existing good, in favor of what
may be spurious.
Mrs. MAUNTEL. We Americans are becoming more and more
aware of the fact that our cities and towns must be beautiful as well
as useful.
Through the efforts of the President and Mrs. Johnson, an awak-
ened citizenry has been made conscious of the need for making beauty
a very vital part of our daily living.
We have come to realize that we must create for ourselves and for
our children a better environment in which to live, and we are now
prepared to crusade vigorously for order and neatness as well as for
charm and beauty in our land.
It is, therefore, important that all those things which add a clut-
tered look to the townscape such as stop signs, bus signs, street
markers, and so forth, should be placed in a desirable and orderly
manner and should be of good design.
Utility wires should go underground, light fixtures should be
designed with beauty of appearance in mind. Even fire hydrants
and trash containers enter into the over-all picture and can be built
with eye appeal.
As a real lift to the townscape, tree planting programs should be
carried on in all our towns and cities. On Signal Mountain in Ten-
nessee, as a result of a quarter of a century of planting, hundreds and
hundreds and hundreds of dogwood trees were recently at the peak
of their blooming period. They envelop the city in a cloud of
creamy white blossoms. And I have seen redbud plantings in an
Oklahoma community lifting the community from the drab monot-
THE TOWN SCAPE 81
ony of a prairie town to the heights of real beauty. Not only the
planting of trees should be stressed, but flowers also, for color in the
townscape.
Recently, a New York woman urged the planting of masses of
flowers where masses of people passed. She was instrumental in the
planting of flowers right down the center of Park Avenue. It was
she who said that flowers to a city are like lipstick to a woman they
just need that touch of color.
Do not underestimate the touch of color to the townscape. Land-
scape design schools and civic development conferences, trained na-
tional councils, State garden club members should be leaders in
community beautification projects. Such informed persons then
serve intelligently as members of park boards, highway commissions,
schoolground committees and the like.
Industry can contribute in a financial way through grants to
garden clubs to help establish parks and greenbelts and for planting
projects of all kinds. Industry has a major effect on what this
country looks like. So industry should be encouraged to help.
Perhaps the internal revenue structure could be revised to see what
changes could be made to give greater incentive to industry in its
efforts to help improve the quality of the environment.
Through junior garden programs, youngsters are taught to garden
and are trained to appreciate the beauties of the world about them.
Many city children today have no chance to experience natural
beauty. Through education and appreciation of beauty, beauty is
brought about. This is necessary if we expect the next generation
of Americans to support the programs that we are now planning
today.
Mr. Rockefeller mentioned this in his talk this morning. The
teacher should be better trained to bring a knowledge and an aware-
ness of beauty to the youth of this country. Much more could be
done to emphasize an appreciation of natural beauty, good urban
design, and the preservation of our historical assets.
Educating our children not only to be aware of beauty, but also
to appreciate beauty is one of the finest investments that we can
make in the future of America. The Federal Government should
help educate the public, not only the very young, but the older
citizens, too.
There was a 90-year-old gentleman of my community who was
made aware of a blossoming tree and this led to other observations in
82 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
nature. He said to me with a bit of sadness in his voice that he was
sorry that he never knew until he grew old that the world was so
beautiful.
The National Council of State Garden Clubs plans to set up con-
servation conferences and workshops in the next two years, the
first held at Jackson Hole, Wyo., from September 3 to September 8.
The theme chosen is "Natural Beauty: The Follow-through." At
this meeting, suggestions and recommendations coming out of this
White House Conference on Natural Beauty are to be studied and
discussed. We are so pleased that Mrs. Lyndon Johnson will be
one of the conference speakers.
By actually following through with beautification projects, we
hope to play a vital part in the great crusade of this present genera-
tion to help bring about the flowering of America.
Mr. HAMILTON. What is the image of beauty a city should have?
Those of you who are planners are aware of the work of Kevin
Lynch on the factors of what he calls the image-ability of a city.
Then there is Mr. Lewis' work in Wisconsin in identifying resources
and Mr. Bacon's own work in Philadelphia. In Pittsburgh we
tackled what we called the image of Pittsburgh. What we were try-
ing to do was to identify, through an effective inventory, the concept
of what that city is today, analyze its strengths and its weaknesses, its
principal factors of beauty, its topography and the historic buildings
that should be protected. We attempted to develop an over-all
conceptual arrangement which could be implemented specifically
by the improvement or revision of public policies and ordinances.
It seems to me, in looking at this question of beauty in a city, we
need think not only in terms of our individual elements, but of the
way they fit together. For example, one of the great strengths of
Pittsburgh is the fact that there are many ethnic groups that created
communities with beautiful churches. These churches and some of
the housing of the individuals have unique qualities. In zoning pol-
icies, in the building code and in urban renewal such strengths should
be built upon so that the city, in fact, maintains its unique qualities.
In Los Angeles, we do not have quite as many unique areas and
yet we are nevertheless attempting to formulate policies which are
aimed at developing beauty through local action. For instance, when
someone wants a rezoning he must form, with his neighbors, a sort
of special assessment district, and as a requirement for putting in a
THE TOWNSGAPE 83
new street or improving the street and street lights, he must also, for
example, pay for the putting in of the street trees.
The kind of protection which Mr. Gray pointed out as so im-
portant in saving our heritage can actually be implemented through
policies of a city's capital budgeting process, through changes and
modification in the quality and arrangement and design of subdivi-
sions through local ordinances, through urban renewal policies and
public housing projects and other planning or house development
and through changes in the building code.
We should examine most critically the key relationships between
freeways, streets, and the total environment. The essentials of good
design in creating excellence in urban forms and particularly vehic-
ular ways, must be identified and followed. These include :
Good proportion : Too many engineering structures in this coun-
try are bulky and poorly designed.
Harmony of the road to its environment : Unfortunately, the en-
gineers do not really concern themselves with the relation of the
road or street to the environment. Adding a little more land to the
acquisition or being much more careful in its gradient can make a
road infinitely more beautiful.
The symmetry of the road relative to beautiful views: Look at
the contrast between the New York Thruway and the New Jersey
Turnpike. Focal points should be strengthened by the orientation
of the road. Structures and grading should be either in contrast
or in harmony; so many big highways and city streets build great and
ugly retaining walls. Adjacent areas should be integrated into the
roadway design so that we really have an effective development.
It seems to me at the city level, the county level, and the State
level, through public policy changes, new ordinances and selling our
councilmen and our legislatures, we can begin to implement specific
policies of this kind.
Mr. YASKO. "Townscape" is a relatively new word in the vocabu-
lary of design, but I expect that after this White House conference
it will be a common word.
The design of a townscape must recognize the specific needs and
qualities that make one place different from another. One of the
most meaningful pleasures in a city is to encounter the shockful con-
trast between two contiguous places of different patterns and shapes,
a contrast which was not artificially supplied through a science of
town planning, but through genuine developments which contributed
84 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
to the city's formation, developments which were largely social and
economic in nature.
Just as there must be good manners in buildings and in the relation-
ship of these buildings to the environment, so should good manners
be exercised in relating people to the area in which they live. We
should not impose patterns upon people which are so unfamiliar
as to make them unhappy. Nor must the monotony of endless, repeti-
tive forms be imposed upon them, destroying the diversity of a city
area which developed out of the social character of those who formed
it.
Go home and look around you. See what community forms
exist, what ethnic groups, and look at the economic situation. Unless
something is done now not tomorrow or next year, but now the
character so essential to the vitality of a city will be obscured and ero-
sion will set in. Let us maintain the contrasting patterns and shapes
of our cities and preserve their landmarks, historic and otherwise.
Let us also begin to police the decay in our city areas and side
streets. Rows of trees and plantings cannot hide the rotting areas
and the beginning of slums; we must remember that leaves fall in
winter and that the gray, cold days will reveal the grime and decay
hidden during the summer.
Mr. ECKBO. There is a series of steps which I think we will have
to go through in order to develop a positive program of townscape
development or urban design.
First, we must recognize that the quality of the environment is
an important subject. It should be given front rank attention. It
has not had very much of this until now.
When we speak of natural beauty and townscape we are really
talking about the total landscape, including all its structural elements.
The work of man is a part of nature. Beauty is something that
results from the relationship between the observer and scene and
is not something that is simply part of the scene. In other words, the
observer participates in creating the experience.
I think the basic elements that mostly establish the quality of our
urban scene are the series of relationships between buildings and
open spaces, and pedestrians and open spaces. Of course, as you
know, the buildings and the motor vehicles tend to take over and
the pedestrians get crowded out. That is really the central design
problem in all our cities.
THE TOWN SCAPE 85
Quality today can only be produced by the full use of the conscious
design process. This is more than a planning process; although it
includes planning, it also involves positive, creative action. It is
essential that the design process be invoked at the beginning and not
come after many decisions have been made. It must encompass
the total area under consideration and must be involved with the
continuity of space and time.
We have to concentrate on the autonomy and responsibility of the
designer. The city has to become a client of good design. We are
going to have to remove a lot of arbitrary, negative restrictions which
limit the design process on the theory that it is not reliable. Stand-
ards, codes, rules and regulations are essentially efforts to bypass
design. Instead of these, we must obtain competent personnel to
perform design and require them to police themselves in a respon-
sible way.
We must realize that quality in the townscape is more than func-
tional, utilitarian, scientific, or rational. It is also poetic, lyric,
romantic, classic, subjective, intuitive all those words that are so
hard for practical people to live with.
Trees are a measure of urban culture and liveability. Their re-
quirements are similar to the requirements of people, in light, air, and
space. But you cannot salvage an urban environment by squeezing
trees into it. The trees have to be an integral part of the original
planning, which is something we rarely see.
If you look at general education in America you will find a lot
of material on the quality and quantity of the social environment
and on the quantity but not the quality of the physical environ-
ment. Yet, taste and interest in the quality of the environment is an
acquired factor. We are not born with it and we cannot expect the
American public to become good clients of urban design unless
material is introduced at all levels of their education to help them
develop this interest.
I think, finally, that we need in all urban areas what might be
called a community development agency, which might be a new
body or might develop from a municipal planning body. This would
be concerned in a positive way with all elements in the local land-
scape, not in a fragmentary way as, for instance, redevelopment
agencies are. It would be concerned with the future rather than
the past, although not neglecting the best of what now exists.
86 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
Mr. SLAYTON. I have noticed there has been no hesitation at all
on the part of local officials to come to me and suggest revisions in the
urban renewal program, and I have noticed no timidity at all arising
out of any worry about offending Federal officials.
Let me say I do have a worry about offending them.
I would like to pick up where Mr. Eckbo left off and talk basically
about the city organization which is necessary to carry out a beauti-
fication program. We can sit here and talk all day, but unless there
is an adequate government mechanism to carry out our plans, we
will not realize them.
Mr. Eckbo has suggested some kind of development commission.
This is an excellent suggestion and I would like to expand on it.
First, you have to have a local citizenry which is really interested
and really pushing their local officials very hard to get something
done. You must then have the public officials themselves. As Mr.
Eckbo said, they are clients ; they are the ones who make the decisions
on what is is going to be built, how it is going to be built, and what
its design will be. It is important that they understand the im-
portance of beautification and of good design. We need education
for public officials as well as for the public at large.
But public officials and the citizenry are not enough ; we must have
the professional, who understands design the landscape architect
and the architect. As employees retained by the public officials, they
are the ones to come in and prepare the designs we are talking about.
With public officials, the citizenry and the professional, there must
be developed a really positive program for improving the townscape
and improving urban design. It seems to me that such a program
must have three subprograms; I will skip through them very briefly.
First, each city has to have an urban design plan, something like
Charles Blessing is trying to prepare and is preparing in Detroit.
L'Enf ant had a design ; Burnham had a design plan for Chicago and
I guess Mr. Hamilton is going to get a design approach plan in for
his city.
In addition to a design, it seems to me, a city has to have an urban
beautification program. It cannot just say it would like to have
urban beautification, it must have a program laid out calling for the
specific things it wants in order to achieve beautification.
You know we have a housing act coming up which has been re-
ported out favorably by the House committee, which calls for urban
beautification in the open space land program. I think there is
hardly a city in the United States today that is geared up to begin
THE TOWN SCAPE 87
to spend that money except for Mr. Bacon here who wants to plant
those 2,000 trees. He will accept that in a minute.
We have to have urban beautification programs that talk about
plans for tree planting and the creation of the plazas and the build-
ing of fountains and the building of the malls and the restoration of
river fronts and waterfronts. No city really has this now. This
kind of an over-all beautification plan has to come out of the city
planning commissions. It cannot be a hit-or-miss proposition. It
really has to be a comprehensive approach to this problem.
Finally, the third prong of this program is the community develop-
ment organization. There has to be some organization that is con-
cerned with coordinating the things that are done within an urban
space.
We have example after example of what I call sibling strife among
departments in a city where each department designs its own signs
and its own lamp posts. These are then jumbled together (I guess
"assembled" is a better word) with no relation to the over-all design.
We have to design areas as a unit, and there has to be an organiza-
tion within the local government that has the authority to see that
these areas are actually designed, not just assembled.
In summary, it seems to me that the city, the town, the urban
county has to have a three-pronged positive program, an urban de-
sign plan, an urban beautification program, and some kind of local
organization that really will see that these areas are designed.
Mr. GUTHEIM. We have met in recognition of the unsatisfac-
tory appearance of American cities. They are today the homes of
most Americans, and here will be raised and formed the future
generations that will make our civilization. Our concern must be
to create urban environments for the Great Society.
Too many American cities look alike. To this monotony we must
add the large scale of our cities. This standardization and imper-
sonality of scale is largely a product of industrial circumstances which
we have not yet tamed and redirected to humane ends. Until such
redirection is accomplished, the quality of our cities will not only
continue to destroy their visual character but their social character
as well.
Before turning to the practical steps to improve the appearance of
our cities, let us acknowledge that the basic conditions of urban life
in the United States today prevent any sentimental return to the
simpler patterns of earlier days. We must start with big industrial
88 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
cities and make them fit to live in. The American city has a
spacious quality and at best incorporates a natural framework and
landscape pattern that runs into almost every block. This pattern
of warp and woof, of buildings and nature, is most decisively ex-
pressed in shade trees. These are not only the ornament of our
streets, public squares, and parks, but run through all open areas of
cities. The planting of large shade trees must become a paramount
objective of all those who would improve the appearance of cities,
and it is the main hope for any early redemption of the lost character
of American cities. A prompt start should be made to improve and
coordinate the technical processes of large scale, mass moving of big
trees, and to reduce the costs of such operations.
At the metropolitan scale, big trees establish the natural framework
of cities, like rivers, and hills, and carry it into each street and open
space. But the design of those most intimate and intensively used
areas must succeed in coordinating all elements of these decisive
features. Urban design today is frustrated by the divided respon-
sibility for trees and park planting, the design of streets and side-
walks, paving, public and private buildings, shopfronts and signs,
lamp posts and mailboxes, litter baskets and light fixtures all the
fine grain of street furniture that goes into these public living rooms.
To introduce a kiosk or a bus shelter is to add to this chaos, not to
clarify it.
Streets and public open spaces of special character demand a kind
of systematic and continuous design coordination that will come only
from a design center established for this purpose. Recognizing the
human scale and more careful detail of townscape, a design center
should work with architects, landscape architects, planners, indus-
trial and interior designers with all who are able to contribute to
townscape design. It should work to express the needs and co-
ordinate the demands of all Federal, State, and local government
agencies which post signs, specify materials and fixtures, determine
spaces and relationships and uses. It should work with manufac-
turers of lighting equipment, fireplugs, paving systems, baskets with
all whose products hope to be used in these areas of cities. Design
coordination is the object, and without it our cities will be a vast col-
lection of separate items, a junk pile in the course of creation rather
than the unified and beautiful areas we seek.
The creation of such a design center, a public, nonprofit institu-
tion of imagination and flexibility, should be undertaken by the great
THE TOWNSGAPE 89
professional societies of urban environmental designers which should
safeguard its public character and high aims. Working with them
should be the public agencies whose operations would be made more
efficient and economical as well as more purposeful, and the many
industries and firms which contribute to the creation of the urban
environment. The Federal Government can assist such an effort
with grants and specific support for its activities and educational
program. The Highway Research Board is an example of such
relationship.
Questions and Discussion
Mr. BACON. Mr. Gutheim's proposal for a central national design
center in which our best designers work with the manufacturers that
produce the objects in our townscape also raises the question of coor-
dination at the local level. Here, we must deal with the street de-
partment, the State highway department, and a multitude of other
agencies. This, I think, goes back to the suggestion which Mr. Slay-
ton made to develop a local unit of government to work on this
coordination, including the question of signs. The panel felt that
it would be very desirable to institute a Federal program with Fed-
eral assistance with funds being made available to stimulate and aid
the local work that would have to be done to receive and effectively
apply the products of Mr. Gutheim's national design center.
Mr. SLAYTON. You have had that assistance for beautification
over the past.
Mr. BACON. This is outside urban renewal areas.
Mr. SLAYTON. It relates to any urban renewal area.
Mr. BACON. If you administer it that wav and the cities can
respond, perhaps we can achieve what you are driving at.
AARON LEVINE. I think the problem before us might be oversimpli-
fied by the analogy of the lipstick. Natural beauty might be applied
just as a cosmetic. The point that Mr. Slayton made goes to the
heart of the matter.
It is somewhat conspicuous that we have attention to the prob-
lem at the Federal level, whereas the policies that will really carry
it out are at the local level. It is our local city councils and zoning
boards of appeal who must decide the highest and best use of the
land which, in turn, affects natural beauty.
90 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
I speak as one who just came from a very difficult problem affect-
ing the slopes of Diamond Head Crater in Hawaii. High-rise apart-
ment buildings are being urged as the highest and best use of the
land. I think that the problem is how we can best convince local
officials that the policies for preserving natural beauty have long
range as well as immediate importance.
MARVIN B. BURNING. We citizens will have to do the con-
vincing at the bottom level. However, I think we just have not
the full scale of the problem in mind unless we also involve Fed-
eral agencies to take a look at the over-all effects of the various
Federal programs.
The President is talking about rebuilding America in 40 years.
Only a massive, an over-all dedicated attack under Federal leader-
ship can meet that kind of a challenge, and to do that, we propose,
some of us from Seattle, that legislation be enacted to make it a
precondition of all of the Federal assistance programs affecting the
urban environment that there be developed by the local community
an integrated plan for guiding the growth of that community. This
plan would include action programs affecting air and water, utility
lines underground, highway design, billboard control, scenic ease-
ments, urban design plans, rapid mass transit, sign controls, and
building parking and open spaces.
I think if you cannot get the money without pulling yourself to-
gether there will be some incentive to pull yourself together.
Mr. SLAYTON. To pick up your phrase, put it all together, it spells
help. This kind of an approach is one that has to be thought out very
carefully in terms of where you are going to do the most good.
You can have a requirement of that nature, very stringent, just as
you outlined it, and it will not produce anything in the way of
encouragement to cities to rebuild, to have good design, to plan
for orderly growth, so forth and so on.
We do, at the present time, have Federal incentives. We have
requirements and Federal incentives to get cities to do certain
things, requirements in terms of local programs and urban renewal.
We also have a planning assistance program which is aimed to assist
cities and metropolitan areas to plan themselves in a very orderly way.
The things you have described are eligible expenditures under this
program.
It is just the old question of the carrot and the stick and how you
produce the best results.
THE TOWN SCAPE 91
WILLIAM SGHEICK. I was glad to hear the comment that the pro-
fessional societies should take some leadership in this.
The American Institute of Architects is going to strike out on its
own this year with a war on community ugliness through our 158
chapters. We have made a movie which we hope many people
will see. Mrs. Mauntel, we would like your garden clubs to be sure
and see it.
We think it is most important in public education to put the
tools for action into the hands of local people. There must be
a complete understanding and a knowledge of local regulations
and ordinances and other things which make action possible. We
have been surveying the country in order to bring these together.
We find a great hodgepodge and it will be quite a job, I believe,
to put these regulations together into a kind of manual or guidebook
which will enable citizen action groups to undertake the job and
carry it on themselves.
We have talked about this as a research program for Urban
America, Inc. I see Mr. Hammer and Mr. Fagan in this room. I
hope they will take this on and help our campaign in this way.
GLENN THOMPSON. I wish to register a concern about the agree-
ment among the panel on the need for urban design. I am suspicious
of this. It sounds more like the great curse of urban renewal where
the curse is, it seems to me, that a plan is designed from the drawing
boards and then it is imposed upon the city. It doesn't seem to me
there is nearly enough in our discussion of what the city itself wants
to be.
I warn us against trying to play the role of designing a good char-
acter for a delinquent boy. If he doesn't want to be as good as
we expect him to be, he is not very likely to be so good.
Mr. SLAYTON. I am surprised at you because it is the people of
Dayton who decide what is going to happen in Dayton in urban re-
newal. It is the city council that adopts the plan. It is the city that
adopts the plan.
What have you been doing in Dayton to see that they adopt the
plan that you say ought to be adopted? We don't say it. You say
it.
ARTHUR J. HOLST. I think we have gotten some mileage out of
some money we have spent, and I would like to share our experience
with you without suggesting we have all the answers.
779-59565 7
92 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
Mrs. Johnson pointed out this morning in her marvelous talk
that the nice thing about this problem is that each individual
can do something about it. In fact, that is the way it must be
if we are going to plan intelligently for urban renewal, city beau-
tification, or anything else.
In some of our cities in the Midwest, it is a problem of know-
ing what is good because we have been so long without beauty.
There are generations that have not seen it. We felt that some
of the wisest expenditures we could make would be to use money
to send people in positions of authority landscape architects, for
example, folks from the Peoria City Beautiful Association, from labor,
management and men in public life to see good things around this
country and in foreign countries.
One of the practical results of this has come about because one
of the members of this trip was the chairman of the Public Build-
ing Commission which was building a new courthouse. The County
Board of Supervisors were drumming the tub to use two-thirds
of the area left beyond the building for parking.
We hope that if any of you come to Peoria in the next year you
will stop and see a beautiful landscaped courthouse with night-
lighted fountains the direct result of some of these expenditures
to let people see things so that they know quality when they see
it.
I think setting up a nonprofit corporation to send people who
will make decisions at the local level out to expand their own
horizons is one definitive action which can be taken.
HAROLD SCHICK. Mr. Bacon mentioned planting 2,000 trees. We
will be doing the planting, I assume. This is news to me. We will be
with you, and just to carry the point further, Mrs. Mauntel said we
hope to have a little perfume in our plantings and put some flow-
ers in the downtown area. We think we can extend this planting
into the downtown area with some help when our budget comes
up for review.
NATHANIEL O WINGS. I have had the privilege of working with
Mrs. Johnson to beautify the Capital City. It is a good example and
should go on the record as a case where through grass roots action,
with no Federal or District financial support, enormous strides have
been taken.
I would recommend that this type of operation be put into action
in every city and every town in the United States.
THE TOWNSGAPE 93
It is always a lot of fun to get together where everybody agrees
and talks to each other, but in all of our city we have a hard core,
probably 90 percent of the citizens who are either apathetic or against
what we call beauty.
We think beauty is almost a respectable word yet it still isn't in
a good many areas of our city, and I am talking of the private enter-
prise level.
My recommendation for the record is that such a conference as this
with similar panels be directed toward the financial community of
the United States. If you think about it a minute, the great financial
organizations such as the insurance companies literally decide the fate
of most of the private building that is done in the United States of
America. They are the ones that should be talked to and they are
the ones that have got to be convinced that beauty is a financially
sound investment.
I would like to recommend to the President that GSA be given the
power to select single architectural firms of high quality in each city
where they do any building so that their building can be a catalytic
agent for the beauty and growth of the entire community.
I would like to recommend that landscaping be given the same
dignity as architecture in the evaluation of all work in all cities.
EDWARD STONE. Mrs. Johnson this morning said the search for a
more beautiful environment must originate with the individual.
This prompts me to say the following.
Obviously, the greatest common denominator in our environment
is the individual dwelling.
I am afraid that, in this country, we have an Anglo-Saxon heri-
tage. Our forefathers, Washington, Jefferson, were in effect emu-
lating the English country squire on his large acreage. Granted
that Mount Vernon and Monticello are very poetic episodes but
now, the spectacle of Mount Vernons and Monticellos are observed
on 50-by 100-foot lots. If our ancestors had come from the Con-
tinent, from France, Italy, or Spain we would have quite a dif-
ferent set of standards.
Anyone who has motored through France has seen that villages
are built compactly and permanently, wall to wall, with privacy
obtained in cloistered gardens at the rear. They have seen the hill-
top towns of Italy built in the same way. In Spain you see houses
built around cloistered patios which has its origin back as far as
Pompeii where there were the traditional atrium and courtyard.
94 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
Houses were wall to wall and built of permanent materials which
means the countryside is preserved. In other words, a compact
village and open country.
I do not want to talk too long, but let me talk for a second or
two more. You are all familiar, if you fly over the cities of this coun-
try, with these millions and millions of little worthless, expedient,
wooden boxes all placed on dangerous roadways involving extended
utility lines and complete loss of that precious commodity of privacy.
You reach the point where you can shake hands with your neigh-
bor out of the window.
This is all wrong, needless to say. How can we plan cities like
that? Take the city of Bath, England, which is, in effect, a city
where you see great monumental crescents in open countryside,
but which are really row houses of a high order.
Now, row housing is a dirty word, but it makes so much sense.
Unfortunately, our row housing was all done as an economic
expedient.
My question is how can we change this pattern? I have talked,
for instance, to large developers, Mr. Levitt on the east coast and
Mr. Eichler on the west coast and all wish to change this pat-
tern. Granted, a single-family dwelling is a mass-produced thing
like a Ford automobile, but even the developers are willing to re-
tool and change.
How, may I ask, can we stop and change the pattern of the
single-family dwelling?
I grant you this is like being against God, mother, and country,
but it is all wrong.
PATRICK HORSBRUGH. Under the terms of townscape may
I make the special plea for the need to study the social and thera-
peutic values of water and for the ecological and local climatic ef-
fects of water and for the visual and economic benefits of ex-
posed water.
Much has been said in favor of foliage. More needs to be said
on the study, value and vitality of water in conditions of high popu-
lation pressures.
WALTER REUTHER. I had the privilege of hearing President John-
son's inspiring address at the University of Michigan when he
called upon Americans to join in the building of the "Great So-
ciety." I was most impressed when he said, "As members of that
THE TOWNSGAPE 95
Great Society, we would need to be more concerned with the qual-
ity of our goals than the quantity of our goods." That is what
this conference is about.
This conference is about how a free society, within its value
system, can harness the rising star of science and technology to
provide the higher and higher levels of economic abundance, but
also use that abundance consistent with basic human values to
satisfy both man's material needs and the needs of the human
spirit.
To me, this conference is about how we build a tomorrow in
which we can have not only more bread, but also more roses.
Satisfying our material needs is a very simple thing with our ad-
vanced technology, but if we stand committed almost exclusively to
the expansion of man's material well-being and neglect his spiritual
well-being, then I think we will fail to achieve that "Great So-
ciety."
What is our basic problem? As I see it, it is summarized in the re-
marks you made, Mr. Chairman. You said because a sewer col-
lapsed in Philadelphia you had an opportunity to build a garden
path and you wanted to make that garden path the way garden
paths should be, with flagstones and with nature. Instead of that,
you got blacktop.
Why is it that we get unlimited blacktop? It is because we have
limited budgets. We have limited budgets because we give lip
service to our value system, but we are not acting true to those
values.
If we are to build an America in which bread and roses can be
achieved in their proper balance, not in the lives of a few, but in
the lives of many, then we have a practical job of raising the level
of understanding of these intangible, human values that we as-
sociate with beauty.
The problem is not that we lack the know-how. We have plenty
of know-how. We have plenty of resources.
Our problem is that we have not, as a nation, accepted these
values and prepared to commit ourselves and our resources to their
achievement.
I think we have a tremendous job of public education and I hope
that as a result of this conference and the great national attention that
will be brought to bear upon the problem, that we can mobilize
the trade unions and the churches, and the other great organizations.
96 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
If we do so, public planners, architects, and other people who really
determine the physical environments of our society will respond to
the discipline of an aroused public understanding. I believe that
this is the key to whether we can build the Great Society in which
man can have both bread and roses.
GEORGE HOWIE. We in the Institute of Traffic Engineers repre-
sent the profession which provides traffic controls, to some of which
you may object. Actually, there are national standards in the field
of traffic controls sponsored by such groups as the American Mu-
nicipal Association, American Association of State Highway Officials,
National Association of Counties as well as by our Institute of Traffic
Engineers.
Two-thirds of all the traffic control devices to which you object
were installed in violation, in some manner, with those national
standards. Some are obsolete; some are substandard; some are non-
standard ; some are badly maintained, or did not belong where they
are in the first place because they v/ere put in without adequate
warrant for their need.
Well-designed highways and streets, do not require as many traffic
control devices as have been put in under local pressures.
We recognize and we are shoulder to shoulder with you, that well-
designed, clean highways certainly encourage good traffic conditions
and require only a minimum of traffic control devices.
The worst situations that we encounter are where there is a
vast clutter of hamburger stands and all the other things that go
alongside the highway. These have not been properly controlled.
I would request that when you go home you see that your
local authorities do abide by and do use the national standards for
uniform traffic control devices and put in those devices only as they
are warranted.
One of the important things that result is that when a standard de-
vice is used, it has target value and creates instant recognition, so that
a vastly large sign, an unusual sign, an ugly sign is not necessary.
A properly designed device will fit into the landscape reasonably well.
N. E. HALABY. I think the mere calling of this conference has en-
couraged men like Slayton, Yasko, and others in the Federal
Government who want to make beauty a part of design. When you
get right down to it, the Federal official is not normally brave enough
to take beauty in as a factor. He is not concerned so much with the
excellence of the design as he is with being safe and sure that he
THE TOWNSGAPE 97
will avoid the terror of public error. The interest of the President
and the First Lady is a great inspiration to him.
I think another problem is that men in public position who are
concerned with design are not elevated or protected by their political
employers. If they are not good administrators, give them an ad-
ministrative assistant to take care of the paperwork. If they are not
good budgeters, get a budgeter who has a little taste. If they are
not willing to innovate, then they are really obsolete.
We in the Federal Aviation Agency are primarily concerned
with public safety, but I think it must be dynamic safety. We
got a man to design the control tower for future years. We did not
get a man who is a mechanical engineer, to build the least costly
tower, but we got I. M. Pei to build the most perfect functionally.
My predecessor, General Quesada, chose Eero Saarinen to design
a system of safety and convenience around the airport. I do not
agree with where he located the airport, but I do agree with two
very important things. He chose top quality and gave them free-
dom to assist and design all the way from the access roads to those
80 steps from the seat of your car to the seat of your plane. That
is what can be done if there is courage in the public trust.
I think well of the idea of getting double duty out of some of
our public places. The Union Station here and I hope Mr.
Hamilton in Los Angeles will agree would be an ideal spot when
roofed over for a heliport. We are going to have metroports in
a society of 225 million in 1975, beset with perhaps 110 million
automobiles.
Finally, it seems to me that we can do a great deal about
noise and ugliness at airports. Mr. Eckbo and other landscape
architects are just as important to the Great Society as the me-
chanical and civil engineers. With their brothers in the architectural
business, they can build hush parks around airports, beautify the
approaches, attenuate the noise and make some real improvements.
Mrs. JOHN M. KENNEDY. Two years ago we organized a beautifi-
cation council in southeastern Michigan comprised of Oakland,
Macomb, and Wayne County, and including Windsor.
I am going to submit a copy of the bylaws to the panel.
We met monthly on what our cities can do to promote pro-
grams to better their communities. However, we feel that in the
two years we have been organized that we have missed our big-
98 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
gest opportunity, that of putting the programs starting in the kinder-
garten to continue all the way through the colleges.
Our present generation is not participating in these programs. We
can work together and start right in on the elementary grades and
teach our children not to litter, to plant trees. They will take the
message home, and I think we will have a better United States.
Mrs. ELIZABETH WEIHE. We have our citizens meeting together,
people who have never met in one room before and it looks as if we
will have to have a new auditorium. I can assure you it does work.
We are sometimes called the bedroom of Washington. Mrs. John-
son looks our way, so we have to get busy.
MICHAEL DOWER. May I say first it is a privilege for a group
of us to come to this country. I would like to make three points.
The first is about trees. In Britain we have started taking up the
U.S. technique of planting trees. We are also starting to bring
them in in ways which have not yet been extensively used in the
United States, by taking trees not from nurseries but from the woods
and forests.
I am struck in visiting America by the fact that so many of your
cities have great woods right next to them where anyone could
bring trees without the expensive preparation over the years neces-
sary in nurseries. I would think you could set yourselves a figure of,
say, 1 million shade trees for the whole of the United States, each city
bringing from the woods and forests around it those trees which are
native to its region and so thereby bringing regional character into
the city.
The second thing I want to suggest, which we have used with effect
in Britain, is that these trees are only seen as one side of compre-
hensive improvement schemes in towns. We take an area in a
town and we completely facelift it at one time utility lines, signs,
shop fronts, street furniture, the whole lot at one time. The amaz-
ing thing is that the pressure of opinion and of simultaneous action
forces people to do things which they would have no incentive to
do if they were asked to do them in isolation, which would be rather
like asking one gangster to disarm. These schemes are initiated by
the Civic Trust, which is a private national organization financed by
industry and concerned with increasing the beauty of British towns
and countryside.
Now this could easily be applied to any part of main street
THE TOWNSCAPE 99
America or side street America, not just, say, to Colonial Williams-
burg.
The third thing which Mr. Gutheim suggested was the design
center. We in Britain already have such an operating unit run by
the government. It is on a more limited scale than he suggested, but
nevertheless the germ is there.
Basically, it is a proving agency for designs for street furniture
and other items which are used outside as well as inside our homes.
Organized by the Council of Industrial Design, it is substantially
paid for by income from the people whose designs are approved
and, therefore, it is not an expensive program. There is a dis-
play, and government grant-aid is given only for items of approved
design. I don't know whether the same thing could apply here.
This design center is based in London and has regional offices
throughout Britain in the major cities. I imagine you would have
to do this by means of regional offices in this country, too.
ROBERT KATZ. I think it is clear from many of the comments
made today that we are reflecting a national concern, whether it be
with our lack of trees or the ugly condition of many of our com-
munities.
I would make one comment on this. Let us not make the mis-
take of equating a national concern with the need to formulate
national standards for beauty. Instead, I urge that the Federal
Government's concern for a more beautiful country be translated
into a multitude of individual local programs.
The distinction between the necessary broad design guidelines
which might be set at the Federal level and the precise plans that
are drawn locally should be sharply drawn in any program that gives
grants for urban beautification and improvement. I think this is
imperative, Mr. Slayton. Unless we make such a distinction I think
we run the risk of building a new national monotonous landscape
under the banner of beauty.
Mrs. ELINOR GUGGENHEIMER. At the risk of distressing Mr,
Reuther, I am surprised that there has not been more emphasis
placed on the defacing of our cities by automobiles in general.
I am a member of the New York City Planning Commission. We
have, at various times, in granting permits for parking lots practiced
what I would call "Arboreal Blackmail." We have been able to get
100 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
hedges and trees, screening off the parking lots and gasoline stations
and junkyards.
As one approaches cities we are faced with the depredation of the
automobile. The screening of these automotive services and facili-
ties by various kinds of landscaping techniques can be accomplished.
Perhaps there are some suggestions as to how we can do it on a
national level.
AUGUST HECKSCHER. I think if I were going to say anything on
this it would be in the nature of a warning rather than a summary.
There is a great danger in discussions of this kind that we think of
beauty in too narrow and too conventional a sense and that we
think about cities as they have been rather than as they must be
in the times ahead. If, as President Johnson has said, we are going
to rebuild America in the next 40 years, and it is going to be a dif-
ferent looking America from anything that has existed before, we
are going to need wholly new standards of beauty.
I am all in favor of trees, for example, but I must say I was some-
what surprised by the exceptional emphasis placed upon them in this
meeting and by Mr. Gutheim in particular.
I am all in favor of what Mr. Stone has said in regard to town
houses as opposed to the individual houses, the small Monticello
palaces placed upon their 50- by 100-foot lots. But if we are really
thinking about the new scale and the new America, it seems to me
our concepts of beauty must be somewhat different from these and
somewhat more novel.
I would guess, for example, that the row house is going to be
only the expedient of a moment in time and will satisfy our re-
quirements only for a passing instant before we have to go into
wholly new forms of dwellings that are going to satisfy the im-
mense population and the immense pressures towards urbaniza-
tion within this country.
We will have to break away from the row house into some
kind of high-rise habitation and in those we will have to find our
beauty in the same way as with regard to trees.
When you have the old-fashioned street, it is important to line
it with trees, but the real question is are we going to have the old-
fashioned street?
I think the time is past when you are going to have streets
which fulfill the functions that have been traditional functions of
bearing traffic, of carrying pedestrians and, ideally, of allowing
THE TOWN SCAPE 101
those meetings and discussions with which we associate democracy
down from the days of the Greeks. The man in the street, in
other words, isn't going to exist any more, I suppose, and we will
have to have a different kind of man and, certainly, a different
kind of gathering place.
I think it is very important that we think about the functions
we need in our cities and that then we find the wholly new forms
which are going to meet and fulfill them.
That, really, Mr. Chairman, is what I had in mind. If we are
closing now, I would rather think we are just beginning; that
we could consider before we close some of these newer concepts
and how we can create beauty in a society which is going to be
increasingly dominated by great masses of people and by unique
technological methods and processes.
Statements Submitted for the Record
MRS. ERNESTA D. BALLARD. The people at this conference are
leaders in their communities. They were invited to come because
they share with President and Mrs. Johnson a deep concern for what
is happening across the land. Our efforts to stop the spread of ugli-
ness, which have been given a tremendous impetus by this wonderful
conference, will be picked up and carried on by thousands more
across the country. Some of these people, through no fault of their
own, are pitifully unsuited for this job.
On Friday of last week, two officials of the General Services Ad-
ministration in Philadelphia came to me for help in the selection
of trees which they were about to order for placement in redwood
tubs outside some of the most imposing Federal buildings in Phila-
delphia. This was being done in order to comply with a directive
from Washington to beautify those buildings, inside and out. Any-
one who knows anything about plants or cities knows how soon this
kind of misdirected effort will become an ugly eyesore. If we are
to pass the responsibility for beautification on to people in positions
like these two men, we will have to find ways of guiding their efforts
into suitable channels or we will find ourselves engaged in a ludicrous
exercise contributing to the further defacement of our cities.
VALLEAU G. CURTIS. This is in reply to the statement by the
gentleman from Great Britain who suggested seriously that we dig
trees out of the forests and plant them in the city.
This statement is ecologically unsound.
102 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
Trees growing in forest areas have developed from a small tree
under shaded conditions. A tree removed from such an area to a
full sun environment is vulnerable to sun scald splitting of the bark.
In moving a tree from a forested area, a large portion of the root
system must necessarily be destroyed. The lack of sufficient root
system plus the sun condition creates a weak tree which has a very
poor chance of survival unless it is severely pruned, which would de-
stroy the shape of the tree.
We in the nursery business recommend the use of smaller trees,
if economy is the basis for the suggestion. We recommend using
nursery grown balled and burlapped trees.
The smaller well-rooted nursery grown trees recover quickly from
transplanting the results are vigorous young trees that will stand
the adverse city conditions.
ROBERT H. EYRE. Let's reforest our cities. Fifty years ago con-
servationists sounded the cry that it was necessary to reforest our
timberland which in many areas had been completely cut down to
provide lumber for our growing country. Until this time it was
thought that our forest reserves were so vast that they would never
be depleted.
Much the same thing has happened within our cities. What at
one time were rolling hills clothed with a variety of trees are now
barren of vegetation. It is now time to apply the same standards
of conservation and reforest our cities.
Trees properly used constitute an important design tool for unify-
ing diverse architectural elements within our cities. They provide
scale, texture, and color and give a sense of order and restfulness.
Trees act like a filter to collect particles of air pollution and also
freshen the atmosphere.
1. An aggressive program should be initiated through the use of
trees to screen objectionable, blight-producing areas such as junk-
yards, billboards, and the like.
2. This will require large numbers of trees and an expanded
nursery production of shade tree stock. Why not put to use idle
forest nursery capacity owned by State and Federal forestry agencies?
Trees should also be made available on a cost-of -production basis
to promote wide citizen participation.
3. Production of shade trees on an expanded scale for urban beau-
tification could well be emphasized in the Appalachian region, an
economically depressed area but also a region close to large centers
THE TOWNSGAPE 103
of population and well suited to the production of shade tree stock.
4. In carrying out all phases of this program the possibility of
full use of the Job Corps and other programs to provide employ-
ment and training should be investigated.
5. To implement this program, the desirability of reemphasizing
Arbor Day should be considered. Tree planting by children will
help to instill respect and appreciation of the values of parks and
open spaces.
Reforesting our cities would provide the acoustical cushion to
absorb the roar of the city and again provide a haven for songbirds
and small animals for the enjoyment and education of the city
dwellers.
RICHARD FANNING. These are my recommendations on the preser-
vation of community shade trees.
Although it is fully agreed that assistance should be given to
well developed tree planting programs in communities, it is equally
important that measures be taken to halt the loss of certain tree
species which are quickly disappearing due to diseases such as Dutch
elm disease and sycamore canker.
The Townscape session stressed heavily the need for shade trees
in the community and strongly urged the planting of large trees,
and yet each and every tree saved from disease is far more valuable
than a newly planted tree.
A program is immediately needed to revitalize tree preservation
programs in communities that have long worked in combating, on a
local level, various tree diseases.
1. Initiate a massive and intense research program on effective
shade tree disease preventatives.
2. Assist, through grants, in the removal of diseased trees which
will, in turn, eliminate one phase of the disease cycle and thereby
reduce the spread of disease.
JUSTIN HERMAN. Two recommendations are submitted:
1. The Housing and Home Finance Agency should establish a
new element in its workable program requirements for community
improvements. This would recognize design and beautification
values in those activities of the city which lend themselves to aid
under HHFA programs.
2. The Urban Renewal Administration of the Housing and Home
Finance Agency should recognize the value (as noncash grant-in-
aid) for exterior works of art, murals, fountains, statuary, de facto
104 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
public parks and plazas, etc., funded by private developers but en-
joyable or useable by the general public.
PATRICK HORSBRUGH.* Much has been said in favor of foliage.
More needs to be known about the value and vitality of water, in
conditions of high population pressures.
A special study is therefore recommended of the social and thera-
peutic significance of water : the ecological and local climatic effects
of water; the visual, auditory, sensual, spiritual, and aesthetic benefits
of the need to expose water in its varied forms in the urban scene.
Whoever saw an ugly reflection? I plead that funds be allotted
from a foundation or from Federal sources for the making of a
comparative survey, an illustrated report and a film (28 minutes) in
praise of water as an essential part of improved urban design.
In desert places, exhibition of water in even a minor display
assumes something of a spiritual significance, as in a Persian garden.
In lush environments where it may be used more freely, water pro-
vides a symbolic elegance and personal identification with the public
scene. In any event, water deserves more adequate recognition
and widespread uses within the increasingly dense urban enviria.
DONALD W. INSALL. Beautification programs always start with
"Let's plant trees". We in Britain, used to make a mistake: until
recently, we were forever planting, not trees, but small flowering
shrubs. Small flowering shrubs are entirely out-of-scale with the
modern urban townscape. Washington is incredibly lucky you
have real trees. Washington, please keep it this way. Other cities,
please follow.
But trees are not the end of it. Beauty is not the same as beautifi-
cation. Beauty is simplicity and truth; and a beautiful city is one
with personality, well designed and planned, just being herself. Fritz
Gutheim is right. Cities are as different as people. How can we
help a city to express her special character and beauty? Not by
drawing board planning, but first by sensitive analytical survey.
Then by playing up every feature, every asset, every charm. By
clearing away confusion, eyesores, muddle. By seeking and seizing
every opportunity as it comes. You cannot do it with cosmetics,
with flowerbeds, or even with trees.
First study and know your city !
*This is an extension of remarks made by Mr. Horsbrugh during the panel
discussion.
THE TOWN SCAPE 105
To husband our resources well, we must first define (a) their
limits, (b) their qualities justifying conservation, and (c) what de-
tractions call for remedy.
The greatest assets of our towns are (a) their individuality, (b)
special neighborhood and townscape elements, and (c) buildings of
architectural distinction. Each needs help.
Conservation is only one facet of total planning. Conflicting
claims of heritage, use, and change demand decisive resolution. De-
cisions are impotent without a competent executive. And executive
agencies need initiative and incentive. Honor, encouragement,
awards, profit, all have their place.
Given last, a program of education in appreciation, maintenance,
and management, our cities can then earn and deserve our pride.
FRITHJOF M. LUNDE. There are a very few "Lyndhursts" in
America; and few cities and counties have other than isolated exam-
ples of Early 18th Century, Post-Bellum or Eclectic residential archi-
tecture under the protection of the public domain.
There are, however, in the heart of almost all municipalities indi-
vidual fine houses or rows of mansions on the fine or once-fine
streets, usually of high quality construction, often architecturally
significant or at least exemplary of the vigorous, exuberant forms
of vernacular Gothic, Georgian, Richardsonian, Greek Revival, or
regional styles.
They are generally in financial or maintenance decline, passing
out of owning families, into the gray areas of urban blight or into
conversion to funeral parlors, private schools replete with awkward
fire escapes, or into dereliction for tax, probate, or area obsolescence
reasons.
As the decades pass they will ultimately be (if they still exist) part
of our historical heritage to a greater and greater degree. Even now,
along with public buildings they are the only buildings of quality
which most communities possess.
This proposal seeks to define a possible zoning-redevelopment
framework in which government, institutions, and entrepreneurs
singly or in concert can work to preserve this heritage in as many
areas as possible.
"Mansion-Row Zoning" would be premised on the thesis that the
better historical-architectural prototypes, and more particularly
groups of them, where such exist, are vested with a public interest
whether or not they are in the public domain at the time of their
106 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
designation. The provisions to be incorporated in enabling legis-
lation would call for the creation of mansion zones, the intent of
which would be to permit special consideration and broad zoning
exemptions, particularly of use zoning, subject to the control of
the planning authority or planning board. The functions of the
appeals body would be restricted to staying actions. The mecha-
nism of the ordinance would have to provide for selection of archi-
tectural examples based firstly on basic architectural worth, then,
in order, upon state of preservation, location in the community,
and lastly upon potential for absorption into the public or quasi-
public domain or into a long-term redevelopment scheme; designa-
tion would be by an appointive body whose members would be des-
ignated as the official representatives of organizations in interest
(that is historical societies, architectural societies, art historians, his-
tory teachers, horticultural societies, etc. ) by the organizations them-
selves. The ordinance would name the participating bodies, with
their consent ; the language would be permissive and not mandatory
upon the cooperating organization.
The heart of the proposal would be in the variation of the use as-
pect so as to permit, subject to appropriate safeguards, broad lati-
tude in exploring ways to save the buildings on a sound economic
basis. Governments as first priority purchasers can well afford to
consider housing specialized agencies of a prestige nature in the kind
of quarters which these proud or once-proud buildings represent.
Institutions could next be polled to see if preservation could be
arranged by them through purchase, bequest, long-term purchase
options, installment purchase, or similar devices.
Private developments would be considered as the third alterna-
tive and the most likely one in most instances. Individual buildings
on large plots or groups of mansions on large or moderately large
plots, so typical of these fine houses, would be designated as redevel-
opment districts (if private negotiation arrangements for the preser-
vation-designated buildings failed), thereby bringing them into the
public domain. Under the circumstances envisaged, cost write-
downs of these redevelopment areas would not be required as the
land so assembled would, if centrally located, normally be of higher
value as a large parcel than any individual holding. The participat-
ing entrepreneur would first enter into a negotiation agreement with
the municipality or county (or State) permitting him to negotiate
for all or most of the properties in the designated group. Prior to
THE TOWNSCAPE 107
attempting to purchase or obtain options, he would have submitted
for approval a general development schematic study which would
establish the proposed land coverage, permitted uses, floor area ratios,
and parking requirements of the scheme, the essence of which would
contemplate the use of the mansions fronting these properties as
executive offices of various concerns who would have the balance of
their enterprise housed in an interior lot building attached by porte-
cochere or glazed passage to the mansions. Such interior buildings
would have to be thoughtfully designed so as to be compatible with
the mansion or mansions, particularly if the interior building relates
to more than one mansion. Parking requirements would have to be
met, and mandatorily behind the front line of the adjacent mansion,
thereby preserving the open aspect of the front lawns.
This proposal therefore couples landmarks preservation to urban
redevelopment, aimed primarily at the smaller suburban municipal-
ity and county seat, although it could be equally applicable to metro-
politan areas and State capitals.
It is further proposed that a sponsoring organization undertake
the drafting of model legislation (unless it already substantially
exists ) , and then enter into a sponsorship agreement with a munici-
pality to undertake a demonstration project and the enabling zoning
ordinance.
The language of the ordinance would bind any future owner to
maintain not only the exterior of the building but the basic interiors
of the important rooms as well, in a reasonable intact condition true
to the architectural spirit of the building. Changes such as air con-
ditioning, sprinkler systems, and so on, would be submitted to the
selection board for aesthetic approval. Interior furniture respectful
of the building would be encouraged so as to avoid the standard
office look.
HAROLD LEWIS MALT. The roses and trees urged for the urban
landscape will not long survive midst the weeds pushing up through
the asphalt jungle. These weeds are hardy. They grow wild and
unchecked. They never disappear. Blanketing the ground, they
push up and pollute space. They come in many varieties: light
poles, signs, traffic signals, and fire plugs. And they seem eradicable.
Members of the Townscape panel and others have suggested these
weeds are a local concern. They say this has not been an area for
Federal action. And in a sense this is so. The need, the desire, the
action must originate at the municipal level.
779-59565 8
108 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
However, the weeds will not be eradicated or controlled by local
governments. They have neither removal techniques nor anything
better to replant. These officials have neither the instrumentality
for control nor the tools or techniques from external industry. For
the suppliers of components have been either unconcerned with the
problem or unable to cope with it. Perhaps this is because of the
fragmented nature of the industry.
One group of manufacturers supplies only poles. Another pro-
duces only lights. Still other companies make signs. And different
companies supply only traffic signals. There is no component inter-
face. All these parts must be put together by the municipal people
with blacksmiths' brackets and baling wire. The result is functional
and visual chaos.
Therefore, Federal and institutional support of research is
essential.
The immediate need is to develop performance criteria, to deter-
mine what these equipments should do.
Then a systems concept and approach to design and installation
of street facilities is required. We must leapfrog the obsolete prac-
tices. We must redesign with advanced technology for America's
future needs. This kind of research the Federal Government can
and should support.
This research will show what can be done. It will result in new
prototype systems and equipments. These will promise a new en-
larged market to industry.
Manufacturers will be quick to seize upon and utilize the by-
products of this research. They will soon make available these new
systems particularly if the government supports their adoption in
new urban projects.
Municipal administrators, directors of streets and traffic commis-
sioners, will at last have available sources of better supply.
Then, indeed, will the weeds on the urban landscape have been
controlled. The urban soil will have been conditioned to accept the
trees Mrs. Johnson suggests we need. The weeds will not over-
whelm the trees the citizen plants or the flowers he tends.
WILLIAM H. SCHEICK.* The American Institute of Architects
wholeheartedly supports the President's objectives and his statements
for great national programs to conserve and restore the natural
*This is an extension of remarks made by Mr. Scheick during the panel dis-
cussion.
THE TOWN SCAPE 109
beauty of this Nation. The Institute is especially concerned with
all aspects of the nationwide movement which relate to urban and
manmade environment.
As an immediate acceptance of its responsibility in this area, the
AIA has launched its "War on Community Ugliness A Great
Environment for a Great Society." The resources of the 158 chap-
ters of the Institute are being marshalled to conduct for the citizens
of cities in all 50 States educational programs which will inform civic
leaders and citizens of their opportunities to beautify their cities and
plan for the future.
A 27-minute motion picture has been produced by the Institute
entitled "No Time for Ugliness An Evaluation of American
Cities." The movie contrasts the beautiful with the ugly with
scenes from a number of American cities. The selections include
entrances to cities, waterfronts, intown and suburban housing of
several cost levels, business districts, suburban shopping areas, public
plazas, and restored historic neighborhoods.
The movie will be supplemented with brochures and publications
to describe procedures by which civic action groups can carry out
beautification campaigns. A major item of literature is to be a
sample list of ordinances, regulations, and enabling acts which have
been successfully used in various cities to attain objectives in civic
beautification.
The Institute believes that this list will provide a major tool for
effective and continuing action in all cities. However, the Institute's
resources for complete research and compilation of such ordinances
are limited. We have proposed to Urban America, Inc., that this
would constitute an excellent research project for a grant by Urban
America, Inc., from its foundation funds.
The American Institute of Architects will supplement its own ef-
forts in the War on Community Ugliness through collaboration with
other organizations and the government whenever opportunities
present themselves.
Dr. J. HAROLD SEVERAID. Adequate urban development does not
necessarily preclude a maximum blend of man with nature. In the
long run wise planning can provide an acceptable compromise of
both values. And nothing less than this should be tolerated by the
citizens who have to live confined in a concrete wilderness.
No city should be allowed to develop as a slave to manmade
structures. A city and its people could not long endure unless there
is adequate open space.
CHAPTER 6
PARKS AND OPEN SPACES
1:30 p.m., Monday, May 24
The Chairman, Mr. SIMONDS. Fellow dreamers, you who have
a vision of a more vital, more refreshing, more stimulating living
environment; fellow crusaders, you who share an urgent compulsion
to make this dream come true, welcome to this panel on Parks and
Open Spaces.
It is fitting that this conference should be held in our capital city
of Washington, where one finds some of the most beautiful open
spaces of the western world.
This conference is symbolic. It is an historic underscoring of an
awakened concern for our national heritage. Under the perceptive
leadership of our President and his Lady, the tide is running as never
before for the preservation and development of the natural beauty of
our country and for the creation for our people of more beautiful
highways, more beautiful countryside, more beautiful cities and thus,
a more beautiful United States.
For this objective to be achieved, it must be approached with all
the planning skill and idealism that can be applied.
One is reminded in this task that the great Kublai Khan who,
in the planning of his magnificent city, Cambaluc, said: "We must
plan here on these northern plains, a city with which men will find
themselves in harmony with nature, God, and with their fellow men."
And then he set about to do it. We can afford no less lofty a con-
cept in the planning or replanning of our cities today.
Members of the Panel on Parks and Open Spaces were Arthur A.
Davis, Charles W. Eliot II, Jane Jacobs, John O. Simonds (Chair-
man), Otis A. Singletary, Arnold H. Vollmer, Walter E. Wash-
ington, and Senator Harrison A. Williams, Jr. Staff Associate was
Milton B. Davis.
Ill
112 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
Said Kublai Khan : "It is not enough to build parks in our city.
Rather, we shall create our whole city as a park." And so today it
is not enough to build open spaces into our cities; we must rather
conceive of each city as an interrelated park, sometimes in tight com-
pression and sometimes open and free, with homes, schools, factories,
and institutions beautifully interspersed.
As we talk today about city parks and open spaces, we must
understand their purpose. Open space with no purpose may be
only emptiness. Knowledgeable urban designers know that to be
significant, each space or complex must be planned so as to express
and accommodate its function.
For example, if you were to build a play lot for a child, this play
lot must be a plaything in itself, with bright colors, rich textures,
symbols, things to put on top of each other, things to move around.
It must have low spaces, high spaces, things to crawl through, places
to stand on, things to stir the child's imagination.
Each space within our cities must be designed in size, shape, pro-
portion, color, texture, and symbolism to express and accommodate
its function.
How do we build a city into a salubrious environment? How do
we build this magic environment for mankind?
The answer is simple. We build it thoughtfully, carefully, and
expressively, space by space, place by place. And the sum of these
places and spaces will be this more vital environment.
What are the functions of open spaces and parks? They are
ways for movement of vehicles and pedestrians. These must be de-
signed as ways, free-flowing channels for movement without friction.
They are places, and these places must be planned as congregating
places, each designed to express its function. If these ways and
places together are conceived in harmony with the natural and man-
made features of the city, then and only then is the form good. Then
and only then is the city beautiful.
Our purpose today is not to philosophize. Our purpose is to de-
velop a series of specific and creative concepts and suggestions for
Federal, State, and local action.
I would like to start off with a few proposals. First, I suggest
that an appropriate Federal agency initiate regional conferences and
seminars on open space planning. They should be held again and
again, around the country, where people who care can come together
and discuss park and open space planning in depth.
PARKS AND OPEN SPACES 113
We need a study of the economic value of urban parks, parkways,
and open spaces. We seem to think that when you put land to park
or open space use, you take it away from the city, that you take away
from the real estate value of the city. I have heard a distinguished
planner say that the future of Chicago would be grim indeed if it
were not for the Cook County Forest Preserves, those great green
rivers of parkland that flow through all of Cook County and around
which much of the best development in the county occurs.
What do these parks cost the local government? The first band
of property around the edge of a forest preserve increases in value
because the park is there. It has been said that the increased tax
yield on this first band of property is more than enough to acquire
and develop and operate the preserves which attract the best housing,
the best industrial parks, the best commercial areas, the best insti-
tutional development in the Chicago area.
I propose that the Housing and Home Finance Agency or some
appropriate agency make a study of what open space and park
planning brings to a city in terms of, not only economic value, but
of all the other values as well. I believe that if such a study is made
and the facts become known, there would be a drive to get more and
more open space, to build more value into all of our cities.
I propose that the Bureau of Public Roads require that grants-in-
aid be contingent upon more effective coordination of highway plans
with comprehensive and open space plans of local governments.
I propose a permanent State commission or department on en-
vironment, so that at the State level there is some agency to coordi-
nate all the many diverse open space, recreation, and conservation
programs of the State.
I propose a regulation to preserve all streams and river basins to
a 50-year flood level against development, except for agriculture,
recreation, or parkway purposes.
I propose that flood plains be reserved for open space purposes
and be used to build great greenbelts down the valley floors and
up the streambeds, forming a green center for our cities.
Mr. DAVIS. I should like to use my time to identify what seem
to me two principal requirements for seeing to it that our cities
have and hold adequate parks and open spaces, and to suggest a
few ways for meeting those requirements.
The first requirement is to make our urban parks and open spaces
places that are worth going to ; that provide fun, sparkle, color, stim-
114 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
ulus, and diversity to our lives; that contribute to the comfort and
liveability of the city, as well as its beauty and design.
Parks that are not useful are not prized; they should enrich the
daily experiences of people as well as contribute openness and green
to the design of the city.
Smaller parks, in particular, are too often stereotyped, traditional
squares or circles crisscrossed by diagonal walks, and equipped with
a statue at the intersection, several drinking fountains, twice that
number of "Keep Off" signs, a bit of shrubbery, some beds of an-
nuals, and if fortune smiles, perhaps several lovely old shade trees.
Lighting is likely to be by the same fixtures as for any street corner,
and benches to be of standard design. Larger city park and open
space areas show little more in the way of imagination.
Parks need to be comfortable and functional as well as green and
beautiful and to serve the broadest range of community needs. Parks
and park programs that work for people all the time, instead of serv-
ing merely as outdoor window boxes, enjoy the loyalty and affection
of the community and a parity position in the city budget. Let me
suggest a few possibilities :
Family center parks in every neighborhood that are exciting and
colorful places for youngsters, comfortable social areas for their par-
ents and grandparents. Equip them with furniture and lighting that
is gay and attractive as well as functional; make it possible to plant
flowers as well as admire them, to wade in water as well as watch
fountains. Neighborhood parks can add a recreation room to each
house in the area, and do it beautifully.
Downtown parks, strategically located to ventilate the central busi-
ness district, meet different needs lunchtime picnics, places for
shoppers to meet, rest, and chat. Here we would admire and use
well-designed kiosks where one would buy flowers, or books and
papers, or refreshments, or perhaps find colorful notices of forth-
coming art shows, plays, and concerts.
An "Outdoor Room" for every public library. A bit of open
space for reading and studying in pleasant outdoor surroundings,
with seasonal flowers and shrubs, shade trees, pleasant little paths
and quiet nooks, graceful furniture designed for the setting, perhaps
facilities for exhibiting local art and sculpture.
Park-school areas. Not just enlarged school grounds, but a con-
tiguous park site that can serve joint uses for school and park pur-
poses, and for community, recreational, and social activities as well.
PARKS AND OPEN SPACES 115
Determined efforts to light our parks properly, patrol them ade-
quately, and take advantage of their natural setting to frame evening
cultural activities plays, concerts, art shows. How long are we to
accept the need to fear and the need to avoid our parks at night?
Urban people have a vast interest in wildlife, especially song birds.
This interest could be recognized by more intensive management of
wildlife habitat in urban park areas. Why not have natural wildlife
areas of a few acres, including perhaps a fishing pond for children,
within easy walking distance of every city dweller?
Why not use parks and open spaces to dramatize the entrances
to our cities? To highlight and enhance historic structures and
public buildings with natural contrast and counterpoint? To open
up vistas of the city, providing relief from monotonous urban de-
velopment? To rescue waterfront areas from decay and incom-
patible uses?
The uses of city parks and open spaces are limited only by our
creativity. If we will it, they can be not only beautiful in the formal
sense, but sparkling, diverse, colorful, and exciting physical environ-
ments.
Federal programs can help. For example, since its inception in
1961 the open-space land program has made grants totaling $44
million for 360 State and local land-acquisition programs in 36
States, totaling more than 136,000 acres of land in urban areas.
These sites are being used for park, recreation, conservation, scenic,
and historic purposes. We can also help to develop and disseminate
ideas in effect, provide a clearinghouse for data and information.
Based on our experience, we can occasionally make suggestions as
to alternatives for meeting particular situations.
The pending housing bill would broaden and strengthen our
ability to assist. As President Johnson foreshadowed in his land-
mark message on natural beauty and in the housing message, a new
program of grants is proposed to provide financial help for urban
beautification and improvement. We would be able, also, to help
in the acquisition of built-up lands in the congested areas of cities,
and in clearing them for park uses. A new demonstration program
also is proposed to support projects that can contribute information
and experience about meeting urban needs for parks and open
spaces.
But the Federal role is a limited one, and should remain so. The
main burdens fall on State and local officials directly responsible to
116 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
the electorate for the quality of the urban environment. They in
turn will rely heavily upon skillful and imaginative planners, archi-
tects, landscape designers, and other experts. But something more
is needed citizen support, indeed, citizen demand, for urban en-
vironments that are beautiful, pleasant, and varied. Such support
is the essential ingredient, the base of the pyramid.
Citizen interest must have not only a voice, but access to expertise,
and a means to communicate its views. Then it is capable of per-
forming tasks that cannot be done well by government, if at all. No
single force has greater capability for achieving the objectives of this
conference.
Organizations like the Nature Conservancy, the National Trust for
Historic Preservation, the Federated Garden Clubs, and the newly
formed Urban America, Inc., have tremendous opportunities for
enhancing the quality of the urban environment and the country-
side. A disadvantage, however, is the very abundance and diversity
of these groups, which makes it nearly impossible for them to oper-
ate together in a fully effective way. As a final suggestion, therefore,
I would like to suggest that these organizations associate themselves
in a way that will provide them with staff assistance, keep them
abreast of what other groups are doing, and otherwise assist in mount-
ing a unified and coherent attack on ugliness in America.
A practical advantage would be that these organizations, in con-
cert with public agencies, could do much to develop local programs of
urban beautification and improvement, a necessary prerequisite to
receiving Federal assistance under the proposed urban improvement
and beautification section of the pending administration housing bill.
Mr. ELIOT. If we are going to preserve or create beauty in our
urban environment and before we talk further about natural
beauty in and around our cities perhaps we should devote a minute
or two to discuss these terms :
"Beauty." Don't be disturbed. The professor is not going to
compete with Plato or Santayana in a philosophic discussion of
aesthetics. But I do want to call your attention to some of the many
aspects of "Beauty" which apply to our problems in the exploding
metropolis. Among them are harmony, balance, sequence, and
order.
I would emphasize "order" or man's eternal search for a grand
design to find where he belongs in a fearsomely complicated world.
We all want to know where we are and who we are. In our cities
PARKS AND OPEN SPACES 117
we find our place in the street pattern and the street vistas ; in rela-
tion to the topography and heights dominated by a building like
the National Capitol; or in relation to the density and heights of
buildings. In the future, as in the past, the shape of the city may
be the key to order and shape is defined by parks and open spaces.
The point about order is that it is the opposite of disorder and
ugliness. It is the disorderliness of litter which so offends us, and
the reliance on disorder to attract attention to advertising billboards.
To reestablish order we need controls over billboards, greatly im-
proved maintenance, police protection and law enforcement, and
education to combat Jitterbugs and vandalism. And we have all
experienced to greater or less degree, the costs and disadvantages of
urban sprawl or growth without shape or order.
The first necessity for the orderly and efficient growth and develop-
ment of our cities large and small is shape and form. Which
areas are to be developed and served by expensive roads, schools,
and utilities, and which are going to remain open or with low
density? The parks and open spaces define the shape of the city.
"Natural" is the other keyword in this conference. Mankind
wants to sense order in what he makes and does, but he also wants to
feel and know he is part of a natural order. As a physical animal,
man is dependent on the natural and needs refreshment by recurring
contact with living things. Too much of our cities is completely
manmade and consists of inert objects. We need the contrast of liv-
ing trees and grass, flowers and shrubs and birds and squirrels and
chipmunks.
You may remember that the father of the park movement in
America Frederick Law Olmsted 100 years ago said that the
justifying value of a public park is re-creation as well as recreation,
through contact with pleasing natural scenery.
In other words, the parks and open spaces in and around our
cities are not waste lands or unused until they are built upon or cov-
ered with concrete. On the contrary they are the essential voids
which give meaning to the solids. They are the essential contacts
with the natural in an artificial environment. We have a gigantic
task ahead of us to emphasize the positive uses and values of open
spaces. Since we have become an urban people we have a special
obligation to fill the gap in the lives of our children and grandchil-
dren caused by their increased separation from the natural.
118 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
In this background, let us concern ourselves with problems and
programs :
1 . We must preserve what we have inherited against misuse, mis-
management, or diversion to highway, school, parking, and other
nonpark uses. Federal grants-in-aid should, in both law and admin-
istration, make it unprofitable for States and cities to raid the
existing parks and open spaces. We need help for local governments
not only to acquire new open spaces but also to maintain the char-
acter and beauty of our parks.
2. We must act now not next year or the year after to save
the essential sites and open spaces in and around our cities. The ex-
plosion is now. We need action from the Congress and the executive
departments and agencies on pending bills and programs to expand
authority and vastly increase the funds available, on appropriate
matching bases, for acquisition of open spaces in fee or by rights
and easements.
3. We must immediately develop and exploit all of the various
means for continuing privately owned open spaces in accordance with
city and regional plans. However much we speed action for public
acquisition of parks and open spaces, we cannot possibly keep the
balance between what is built-up and what is left open, or maintain
the shape and form of the urban area by public ownership alone.
Our national traditions of private ownership and responsibility can
be invoked and new tools must be added.
(a) The private owner as custodian or trustee for property to be
passed on enhanced in beauty and in value should be emphasized.
From the start 75 years ago of the Trustees of Reservations in Massa-
chusetts, organizations to hold "beautiful and historic places" and
conservation and recreation areas have proliferated and expanded.
They should be encouraged by governments at all levels, by tax
deductions for gifts of land, easements, and endowment funds. The
more these private trustee groups can be persuaded to do, the less
public agencies will have to do.
(b) The tools for preservation of open spaces in private hands
need sharpening and support by evidence of successful applica-
tion. We need information on how we can use such tools as rights in
land or easements, the legal bases for flood plain zoning or conser-
vancy or open space zoning, the dangers in preferential tax policies
and the advantages of tax deferral on classified open spaces. We need
to disseminate knowledge of how contracts among property owners,
PARKS AND OPEN SPACES 119
life-tenancy, lease-backs and other legal ways of keeping private lands
in open space uses can be applied.
In summary, we must hold on to what we have in city parks
and open spaces.
We must vastly increase public ownership and public controls
over open spaces to give shape and form to our urban areas and
act now !
We must develop and use private action through trusts and with
sharpened tools for preservation of open spaces in private ownership.
Mrs. JACOBS. A Federal renewal official has remarked (not pub-
licly, but in my hearing) that the open-space program will be useful
because it will justify taking city areas and removing people who
cannot be dislodged otherwise.
If beauty does become another excuse to uproot Negroes, and
another device to dismember neighborhoods coveted by developers
then we may be sure that beauty will get an ugly name.
Let us suppose, perhaps wistfully, that this crusade for beauty will
aim at bringing pleasure and delight to all city people.
In that case, as far as parks and open spaces are concerned, the
first order of business must be to reform park maintenance and
operation. When we speak of beauty, character, or even usability
and cleanliness, we are talking of quality. Park quality, unlike
quantity, cannot be bought with capital grants. Park quality re-
quires, forever and forever, good, healthy operating budgets.
I assume you are aware of today's typical deteriorations; neglected
plantings, broken equipment, pockets of litter, disintegrated pave-
ments. I assume you are aware of the dreary and humdrum designs
that anticipate perfunctory maintenance. More parks has a nice
sound, but what does it mean? Today it means that manpower
and money already spread much too thin will have to spread thinner.
This does not mean we need be defeatist about affording more
city parks and outdoor recreation. But it does mean that it is irre-
sponsible to wish more parks upon cities that lack funds to maintain
those they have.
I am proposing three interlocked programs: Employment, train-
ing and experimentation, all three to be financed and generously
financed too by the Federal Government. Nobody else can afford
to be generous.
Under the employment part of the program, a cooperating city
would receive annual grants for park operation. In return, the city
120 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
would agree to maintain at least its current park budgets, and also
to hire workers from the training program. The more trained
workers hired, the larger the grant.
The training program would supply workers equipped with many
kinds of skills and many degrees of skill. Trainees whose interest
and capacity merited it, would have received advanced training and
specialized experience.
This program would not work if it were only to supply menial
labor. It would not work if it were cynically meant to placate
angry, unemployed youth during the summers. It would not work
if it were motivated by fear of the people, rather than confidence
in the people. It would not work unless there were jobs open and
waiting at the end of training. It must be a way of opening up
permanent, genuine and responsible park careers including careers
that do not now exist. We need new blood, and new blood always
comes from below.
The training program would use city parks leased by the Federal
Government. These classroom parks would also serve, simultaneous-
ly, as experimental parks. While each classroom park were under
lease, it would be done over in part or in whole without reference
to existing practices and standards. Training would combine with
the work of creating these experimental parks and learning to operate
them. This would be training not for things as they are now done,
necessarily; but as they can be done.
Experiment must be at the heart of our search for quality. And
by experiment, I do not mean drawing up new sets of specifications.
It ought to be a sin, if not a crime, to standardize the design, ma-
terial or equipment of parks.
Today many park departments, imprisoned as they are in their
low budgets and fine print, seem to have lost the capacity to want
parks intended for more than minimal maintenance. Does the
cheapest fence to maintain happen also to be the ugliest? Is one
monster skating rink or pool cheaper to operate than five smaller,
scattered rinks or pools? And no rink at all still cheaper? Is
asphalt cheaper to maintain than sand or stabilized earth? Is grass
a cheaper green than a garden? Is a concrete wall less troublesome
than a slope? Is a Keep Off sign cheaper than building a good turf?
The thing is decided. All kinds of possibilities are ruled out in
advance. A recent English visitor, Lady Allen, noting the effects
of such prudence and the mentalities of the people who are good at
PARKS AND OPEN SPACES 121
it, has observed with scorn that American playgrounds are designed
for administrators, not for children.
If beauty is only this year's bandwagon, let us have a good and
virtuous time discussing it and then forget it. If beauty is to be next
year's justification for renewal developers and highway builders, let
us forget it even faster. But if we are serious, let us concentrate
generously and urgently upon the operation of city parks, in the full
understanding that this is expensive but worth it worth it not only
for the obvious advantages of good maintenance and loving manage-
ment, but because this is the only way we can tap new reservoirs
of talent and enthusiasm for city park and recreation work, and
because this is also the only foundation for creating parks worthy
of being maintained.
Dr. SINGLETARY. My role here today is to discuss as precisely as
I can, the implication, indeed the specific assignments, of the present
antipoverty program and the role that this might play in what is the
general theme of our conference.
As you know, the Economic Opportunity Act was passed by the
last Congress and the office that Mr. Shriver heads was established
and is now operating in what, from close view, I can tell you is some-
thing like high gear. The law itself has a number of titles and I will
not bore you with these, but I do want to say that there are several
programs within the framework of that bill that should be of inter-
est possibly the work experience program, certainly the community
action program, and most certainly two of the youth programs.
The first of these programs is the one known as the Neighborhood
Youth Corps. The Corps is now in existence, having components
in many cities in the United States. The idea here is to provide
work experience for 16- through 22-year-olds in those areas of our
social and economic life where urgent public needs are either being
neglected or not fully met.
The enrollees in certain of the Neighborhood Youth Corps projects
are now at work improving forest and parklands, landscaping areas
bordering on our public highways, and in some cities are working
on projects having to do with the grounds of public schools, settle-
ment houses, hospitals, etc. They are planting, seeding, and
clearing.
In Buffalo, N.Y., for example, the Neighborhood Youth Corps
has a program working with and turning out landscape assistants who
can, I think, look forward very confidently to employment.
122 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
In Newark, N.J., you will find a program salvaging trees in the
city. In Oklahoma City, landscape assistants are busy. This is one
program that is already underway in a large number of cities in
the United States and where youngsters are actually working on
projects that are designed to improve the local parks and open spaces.
The other program is the one that I am myself more conversant
with, and that is the Job Corps.
The Job Corps is another youth program for the 16- to 22-year-old
group. It is different from the others in that it is a residential pro-
gram. It is for youngsters who presumably must have some change
in their present environment if they are to have much of a chance to
break out of the cycle of poverty.
Now in actual practice, most of the work program that is iden-
tified with the Job Corps is work on the public lands in conservation
work or in improving public recreational facilities and national parks
and forests.
We have felt that there can be some programs where something a
good deal more pointed could be done, to have some effect on urban
areas as well. For example, in a number of our job centers around
the country we have enrollees taking on the actual improvement
of a city park as a project, say in the city adjacent to their camp.
We think it will make the people appreciate these youngsters a
good deal more if they are, in fact, doing something visible in such
a way that every time one goes by this park and realizes it is a lot
better looking than it used to be, he can say, "Thank us. We are
doing these things for you and you have not asked us to do it."
I think this is a good program aside from what it accomplishes for
the community. More and more camps are opening up around
the country, and the taking on of such projects as this in the commu-
nity is very helpful.
Secondly, we call your attention to such a program as the President
announced less than two weeks ago involving New Jersey and the
Federal Government. In this the State of New Jersey's Department
of Interior and the Office of Economic Opportunity are tying to-
gether Ellis Island, Liberty Island, and a blighted area on the New
Jersey waterfront. This may very well be one of the places in
the United States most in need of this kind of thing.
What we propose to do here is create a Job Corps Center and over
a period of years have a work program pointed toward making a
shrine, in effect an historic shrine, out of Ellis Island. In my
PARKS AND OPEN SPACES 123
opinion, that should have been done years ago. We would also be
continuing the work on Liberty Island and then reclaiming, if that
is the proper word, some of the New Jersey waterfront and making
it into a beautiful, green park. The three will then form one
complex.
It is my conviction that the antipoverty program does have a con-
tribution to make toward our goal of conservation and beautification.
Our youth programs are pointed towards this and are equipped for
this and ought to do more of it than they are doing. I hope as you
participate in these programs locally, if you do so, you will point up
the need in your own communities for the Neighborhood Youth
Corps and the Job Corps to busy themselves in this kind of thing.
Mr. VOLLMER. When I was studying city planning thirty years
ago, cluster planning, as a device to conserve and concentrate open
space had been well established and accepted by the profession. Ex-
amples like Welwyn Garden City and Hampstead Garden Suburb in
England and Sunnyside, Radburn and Chatham Village in this coun-
try could be seen, evaluated and used as precepts.
Yet a year ago, William H. Whyte's greatly needed restatement of
and argument for the cluster principle struck many as revelatory, so
little had been done in its name.
Again, roughly thirty years ago, I presumptuously called the at-
tention of New York City's Parks Commissioner to numerous small
parcels of land owned by other city agencies which were crying for
transformation into small sitting or play areas. With unusual
patience and to my infinite embarrassment he reviewed in detail
the efforts that had been and were being made to acquire development
rights to these very parcels. Apathy, departmental jealousy and
inertia largely blocked the endeavor and this was in the adminis-
tration of Fiorello LaGuardia, no mean redtape cutter himself.
With deference to my fellow panelists and, for that matter to
those on the other panels the planning and conservation principles
which we all advocate here are not new. There may be minor dis-
agreement as to where and when they are applicable but essentially
we are together on broad objectives and we are carrying on in a time
honored tradition.
Our deficiencies are in practice rather than in what we preach.
And much of our failure results from the all too human tendency to
accept the will for the deed, to feel that our wisdom and our state-
ments of noble intent are enough in themselves. We should make
779-59565 9
124 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
no small plans but the most sweeping plan achieves little while it
stays on paper.
First, we must set our sights on objectives which have a reasonable
chance of achievement. Excuse my being parochial in the choice of
an example but the suggestion is constantly being made in New York
that the City should condemn for park purposes small, temporarily
unoccupied, parcels in the midtown area. Now the cost of acqui-
sition of these parcels would be likely to run as high as $400 per
square foot if there were the chance of a snowball in hell that the
most enlightened park administrator would propose and the most
sympathetic budget director approve the expenditure of such sums
for purposes which, except during a very few months of the year,
would give the greatest benefits to adjacent property owners.
( Incidentally, the best thing that could happen would be the de-
velopment of a new breed of budget directors who would concen-
trate on seeing that public funds were spent wisely rather than in try-
ing to block expenditures altogether. But following my own ground
rules I won't set my sights on Utopia. )
To achieve this type of open space I believe we will for the most
part have to await redevelopment and, depending on the type of
sponsorship, rely on zoning restrictions or "bonus" incentives to en-
sure adequate and appropriate open space. Effective legislation
and administrative procedures should prevent the disposition of land
now in public ownership until it has been conclusively established
that it is not needed for park purposes. Land in public or quasi-
public ownership or the air rights above them should be eyed greedily
for open space use.
The auto which has done so much to make the hearts of our cities
hideous should be made to repay some of its debt to us. Rather
than being permitted to preempt park space for parking, even though
it may be only for the period of garage construction, garages and
parking lots should be made not only to stand on their own feet fi-
nancially but should contribute open space. For example, in the
newer housing developments, major parts of the open space around
the buildings are used for parking; for as little as $4-$5 a square
foot, these could be covered with light concrete decks. Not only
would needed sitting or play space be achieved but the outlook from
the buildings would be immensely improved.
Again, in the planning and construction of our urban expressway
systems, land taking should be adequate to ensure not only land-
PARKS AND OPEN SPACES 125
scraped buffer areas between the expressway and the neighborhood
but to yield developed park and play areas as well. The Cross-Bronx
Expressway in New York in its 5.6-miles length yielded no less than
22 playgrounds or sitting areas and this without excess land taking.
Strong leadership, simple legislation and zoning, good public re-
lations and, hopefully, an enlightened public are what is needed to
do the trick. There are, unfortunately, no miraculous nostrums or
universal panaceas and those who promise them delude us, willfully
or otherwise.
Mr. WASHINGTON. A preacher was called to a church. His
first sermon was, "Repent." For the next three Sundays he preached
the same sermon. Finally a good deacon asked him, "Reverend,
aren't you going to change your sermon?" He said, "No, I do
not think so, until somebody repents."
I am particularly impressed with Mr. Vollmer's statement that
planning principles are not new. It brings me to the one charge
that this conference would have for planners and developers today.
We have to repent if our cities are going to look any better.
Mrs. Johnson accepted the challenge of urban beautification and
formed the "First Lady's Committee for Beautification of the Na-
tion's Capital." This committee's structure and performance may
well form the model for similar beautification committees in every
city of our Nation.
On the occasion of the initial meeting of the committee, I observed
that we are all pleased with the beautification of the Mall and the
beauty of the Arboretum and other plantings, but that a really sig-
nificant dimension would be achieved in the Washington urban com-
plex when a youngster had an opportunity to plant a tulip or an
azalea in his own yard. He can then understand the care, the labor,
the discipline involved in the development of this flower or plant.
This process will permit him to understand and appreciate the beauty
of the Mall and the Arboretum.
Parenthetically, I have been very busy planting azaleas around
the city since that time. We must expose all of our citizens, young
and old, to area environments which have beauty, joyfulness, interest,
as well as character and dignity. In too many instances, our urban
and open spaces are characterized by what I call the four D's. They
are dull, dreary, dirty, and depressing.
We can only free our urban citizens from this drab and dreary
condition by applying new concepts of physical design and social use
126 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
of open spaces. Architect Albert Mayer has called this process
"juvenation." Others state that it is the simple process of bringing
leisure time opportunities to the people in their neighborhoods for
maximum use.
In Washington, our Beautification Committee has developed plans
to beautify some playground and recreational areas. We have also
looked at our schools in two dimensions. The physical aspect of the
school, we feel, should be commensurate with the needs of youth.
Its environment should be pleasant and accepting. A dark and dis-
mal school and bare grounds are hardly desirable for bright and joy-
ous intellects. While it is true that darkness is conducive to the
birth of a seedling, only in sunlight and air can it flourish. When
the minds of young are exposed to pleasant, festive and interesting
work and play areas and parks, we see the intellect come through.
We are happy to note, for instance, that two businessmen active in
our committee saw this challenge and recently spent some $7,000 in
beautifying two schools.
To deal with the objective of maximum beauty in our cities is to
deal with maximum complexity. The urban area produces multiple
pressures for available land. This fact is particularly aggravating
in Washington. Confined to a specific land area, Washington has
no opportunity for expansion by annexation. Nevertheless, we must
carefully plan for our city parks and open spaces in the areas where
most of our people are living. Competition in Washington for avail-
able land involves land for homes and living space, highways, office
buildings, industry, commercial activities, schools, libraries, and
other uses all within a limited area. In the District of Columbia
we have not looked upon our urban condition with discouragement.
We have considered it a great challenge to make our Nation's Cap-
ital truly a showcase for all American cities.
From recent experience in Washington and several other cities
I submit a few practical suggestions relating to the application of new
concepts of physical design and social use of open spaces in urban
areas.
First, we know that parks and open spaces should be located and
designed so that they are fully accessible and attractive to the interests
and needs of all age groups.
Greater emphasis should be placed on the design of small, crowded
spaces in urban areas. We know there is great opportunity here.
PARKS AND OPEN SPACES 127
These spaces should afford opportunities for programing a variety
of leisure time activities, of interest not only to the individual but
also to the family unit in the immediate vicinity of the area.
We should extend our planning of parks and open spaces to ac-
commodate daytime and nighttime opportunities and activities in
urban centers, throughout the entire year.
In the planning of open spaces we significantly correlate many
factors of physical and social significance such as building types,
roadways, trees, relationship to neighboring communities, play,
school, and work areas.
We should make our open spaces and recreation facilities part of
the daily environment of our people. We should remove the barriers
to participation and provide opportunities for all citizens to use open
spaces and recreational areas. We provide contact with beauty for
all, in the words of President Johnson, "not just easy physical access,
but equal access for rich and poor, Negro and white, city dweller
and farmer."
Beyond this, I believe that we would all agree that the job ahead
cannot simply be left to government or to the architect or to the
planner or to the sociologist. We know the job is a job for all of us.
As citizens concerned about our cities and the future of our Nation,
we must all work together.
Statement of Senator WILLIAMS.* The President's Conference on
Natural Beauty represents a significant step forward in the search for
ways to preserve and improve the appearance of our country.
Planning for the future means planning to make the best possible
use of all the resources available in our society. With over 70 per-
cent of the Nation's population now living in urban areas, the open
spaces in and around our metropolitan complexes are among the
most precious of all our resources. Yet in city after city, we find
examples of weed-grown vacant lots, neglected parks, overcrowded
play areas, and neighborhoods deteriorated to the point where they
are islands of ugliness.
We have sacrified beauty for the sake of jamming together
as many buildings as possible into the smallest amount of
space, often with little or no regard for the architectural pattern
of existing facilities. The arteries leading into many of our major
cities are bounded by clusters of unsightly billboards, or junkyards
* Senator Williams was unable to be with the panel at the time of its public
meeting. His statement was read by the chairman.
128 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
piled high with the remnants of discarded automobiles. Suburban
housing projects have risen with little attention being given to see
that they fit in with over-all plans of development for the community.
Similarly, little attention is paid to the aesthetics of setting or design.
Suburban growth, which increased by a staggering 50 percent
between 1950 and 1960, is beginning to show the same signs of
haphazard construction that characterizes our large cities. In the
rush to accommodate the large exodus of people from the cities, we
are re-creating the same unhealthy and unhappy environments which
they are seeking to escape. This urban spillover is becoming an
increasingly urgent matter that is going to demand more and more
of our time and energies.
What are some of the guidelines we already have to meet these
growing problems, and where can we go from here?
With the Housing Act of 1961, we launched our first frontal
assault on the open space problem. Under title VII of that legisla-
tion I was successful in having $75 million authorized for open
space use. As of April 30, 1965, this program had made 360 grants
to communities in the acquisition of more than 136,000 acres of
land to be devoted to permanent open space. The continuing vitality
of this program is demonstrated by the fact that 141 of those projects
were approved during the current fiscal year.
But like any program which is new, there were defects, and we
now must begin doing something about them. Localities wishing
to make use of Federal assistance have run into a number of obstacles
because of inability to meet matching fund requirements and because
of the restrictive criteria governing the use of funds upon which the
initial program was based.
The bill which I have just introduced would provide for increasing
the Federal contribution toward acquisition of this land by State
and local agencies from the present maximum of 30 percent to 50
percent. In addition it would make money available for develop-
ing the land as well as purchasing it. I am hopeful that this will
take some of the pressures off city governments which are squeezed
the hardest between costs of providing more and more local services
and the need to purchase rapidly disappearing open space.
Under the 1965 housing bill, many new programs are foreseen
which will encourage local experimentation and innovation, that
should dress up and expand our parks and open space facilities.
Tree planting and a more tasteful use of shrubbery and flowers
would be possible to enhance the landscape.
PARKS AND OPEN SPACES 129
Outdoor facilities for art exhibits and other such special purposes
could be improved and expanded, with care being taken to provide
adequate lighting.
Playgrounds and other recreational areas could be beautified and
broadened in scope so as to benefit all age groups.
Restoration of our waterfront areas should also be high on our
agenda, and more attention could be given to utilizing our city lake
and river systems for boating, fishing, and other leisurely pastimes.
Furthermore, we must begin exercising more imagination and
foresight in developing long-range plans for the shape of our future
cities. Each year one million acres of land are lost to urbanization.
Much of it is wasted when it might have been effectively utilized if
the communities had a better set of blueprints. The failure to plan
well now will only spell additional complications and expenditures
in the future.
But perhaps most important of all, we must now launch a massive
national effort aimed at establishing beauty in design as a major
element in all Federally assisted urban construction programs. I
have proposed that we begin by amending the Housing Act of 1949
to add language to the declaration of national housing policy that
will make explicit the government's objective to provide leadership
in the achievement of beauty in all communities.
Along with this, I am going to ask that a National Council on
Urban Design be established for the purpose of reviewing Federal
aid projects to secure quality design.
We will thus be able to put new emphasis on the aesthetics of
construction that has been so far lacking.
These are just a few of the initiatives which are going to be needed
if the concept of a more beautiful society is to be realized. The
President addressed himself forcefully and eloquently to these prob-
lems in his recent landmark message.
The time is now past when we could defer these goals. Our coun-
try is a gift that has been put temporarily into our safekeeping. We
do not have the right to spoil that which future generations must one
day inherit.
Questions and Discussion
JOSEPH A. DIETRICH. I notice, as is usual, that in most of
these discussions the emphasis has been placed on the words "city
parks." Many of us are also deeply concerned with the problem
130 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
that exists in many of our rural areas and in the villages and towns
that exist throughout the Nation.
Cities are equipped with engineers, planners, architects, landscape
architects, and people in other professions to guide and direct their
activities. What are we planning and what are we doing about the
small communities that do not have these services, yet need them
more than anyone else?
Many of these little towns and cities are experiencing the push
of the city population out into their areas. They certainly are faced
with the problem of land use. Because of their small budgets, they
must use open space land for other town facilities. Many of these
towns and cities, however, are not directly looking for Federal aid.
In fact, they resent in many instances accepting Federal aid because
of the encroachment that will result from the use of Federal funds.
Is there some approach being made by this panel? Have you
discussed it?
Mr. DAVIS. The point is well taken that the need for parks and
open space in our major cities is most dramatic. But this does not
take away for a minute the fact that there is every bit as much need
to make the smaller towns comfortable and liveable and pleasant.
It is even more important in some instances, to make sure the people
do not leave these smaller cities because of their drabness and look
of uninterest.
The President's program for open space acquisition and pending
proposals are equally available to any local agency that can qualify,
that is, who can contract with the Federal Government. Under the
present program we have made a grant of $1,000 to one township
in Pennsylvania. There are only a few thousand souls in this town-
ship, but I am sure they have a conservation approach to their
land use problem. In your own State and the neighboring State of
Massachusetts you are far ahead of most of the country in the
establishment of conservation groups and conservation commissions
authorized under State laws to take a good hard look at the physical
environment of your smaller towns and cities.
Mr. DIETRICH. I want to commend Mrs. Jacobs' statement about
the budget. She points out a very definite deficiency. We are all in
support of what she has said.
CALVIN S. HAMILTON. It seems to me we need legislation
which allows park subdistricts in cities. This can help implement
PARKS AND OPEN SPACES 131
open space and planned unit residential development and help sup-
port more than normal level of park development where local com-
munities want to help pay for it. At present, because of limitations in
legislation, it is impossible to do this.
It also seems possible to implement some of the things Mrs. Jacobs
has suggested in the past. This might include the ability for com-
munities to be able to develop an open mall.
Second, I think we need under Urban Renewal Administration
authority the ability to collect rooftops together.
Now this may sound silly in some small towns, but in the big town
where you do not have groundage you have a tremendous amount of
roof area. There are unique opportunities to develop these for rec-
reational purposes.
Third, we need State legislation which would reduce taxes on pri-
vate country clubs, as a public purpose. It would also apply to pri-
vate plazas, the sort of thing where you have private, open space.
The legislation would also allow the city to have first option in acquir-
ing that land if they ever should plan to sell it, and it would allow the
city to buy it at an open space value rather than at an increased value
based on the value of whatever happens to be around it.
Fourth, it seems to me that the suggestion this morning of an urban
design center could be used to enforce or achieve the rudiments of
good design in public parks.
My last point is that I think the Federal Government should some-
how or other insist that agencies like the Army Corps of Engineers
have somebody with design orientation assist them when they develop
flood control facilities. These now look like the devil and have no
relationship to public open space.
DANA L. ABELL. I have one suggestion and one question. The
suggestion is directed to Mr. Simonds.
I would like to suggest that he take charge of a project of pre-
paring two primers on landscape appreciation, one for urban land-
scape appreciation and one for rural landscape appreciation. His
ability to express these things is unmatched in this country. Such a
primer could be sent into the schools and start the children off with
the kind of appreciation that Mr. Simonds has.
The question is directed to Mr. Eliot.
As a recent refugee from suburbia and it does not matter what
suburbia it is, as it is the same everywhere I could not protest more
132 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
vigorously about your emphasis on order. Order is the curse of
suburbia, specifically, the uniform setback.
I wonder if you have any suggestions as to what can be done about
breaking the stranglehold of the uniform setback in suburban areas?
Mr. ELIOT. Certainly I do not advocate order in the sense of uni-
form setbacks.
What I am trying to say is that we want to know where we are
and who we are in our great cities. The continuation of Los
Angeles, mile after mile out into Orange County or San Bernardino
County, gives us no indication of where we are or who we are in
the Los Angeles area.
It would be all to the good to have a great variety of setbacks, to
have places like Reston, Va., to have all kinds of designs for compact
clustered or other kinds of developments. I am not in favor of
standardization.
PAUL N. CARLIN. My question is directed to Mr. Singletary.
Many of us are interested in both city and county parks and recrea-
tion programs. The primary problem which faces us is the provi-
sion of a hand labor force for many of the jobs that have to be done
on these types of facilities.
I wanted a clarification. Did we understand you correctly that
where Job Corps facilities are located near a city or county park
or recreation program, that contractual arrangements can be entered
into between the local governments and the Job Corps?
Mr. SINGLETARY. This is not the point I was making about the
Job Corps at all. Job Corps is essentially a training institution
where a boy decides what he wants to do, divides his time between
a basic educational program and, in the case of a conservation center,
a work program.
In no case do we have in the Job Corps program a contractual
arrangement. The only arrangement we have at this moment is
where an activity is taken on as a specific voluntary project.
The Neighborhood Youth Corps is not a program operated at
the Federal level. In a city, the Neighborhood Youth Corps might
be specifically detailed for this kind of work. So there is a dif-
ference in the two programs and the two objectives.
As far as the work the boys do, we are primarily concerned in the
conservation of kids and not of parks and open spaces. There is a
different emphasis here, but we think that whatever the work pro-
PARKS AND OPEN SPACES 133
gram is, conservation of recreational facilities or whatever is in addi-
tion to any good that might redound to the community. We are
interested in the good that redounds to the particular youngster in the
creation of work habits. Many of these boys do not know how to
work. We see the work program as a kind of therapy and kind of
discipline as well as something that might produce a particular
result.
LAWRENCE G. ELLERY. I believe that most of us attending this
wonderful conference, the first of its kind ever held in the United
States, have a tremendous obligation to take back with us this in-
formation as missionaries. We have a hard job to sell. Those of us
who are here are interested and dedicated to this purpose.
Our biggest selling problem is going back home and selling our
regional, local, county, and State governments who are already
harassed with their multitudinous problems of meeting budgets,
increased taxes, and wiser spending. With a little wiser spending
we would have ample money to handle the program projected here
now.
We are losing ground every day. We are losing hundreds of thou-
sands of acres that are being needlessly destroyed for the lack of intel-
ligent planning. One point is to encourage our developers who are
only interested in dollars and cents to use the services of trained
people in our profession who have an appreciation of nature and
how long it takes sometimes 100 years to grow a tree that can
be destroyed in a few minutes by a bulldozer.
We cannot rely on the Federal Government for all of this. It
has to be done through a local citizenry in the towns, States, and
cities. Through no other effort can this be achieved.
A DELEGATE. This isn't meeting the issue. The truth of the mat-
ter is that almost everybody in this room and in the other sessions
has been doing this kind of selling job. I think we must continue
our effort at the local scene, but the impact on the cities and urban
regions of this country comes even now through Federal action. Let
us face up to this as a reality.
I would like to suggest that I think there has been something of
an undertone that everything that exists today is bad.
I am grateful to Mr. Ellery who suggests that there are things
which are good and which must be saved.
The great issue before us is not so much where to build, but where
134 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
not to build. It is in this direction that I think we have to direct a
great deal of our effort.
I am thinking particularly of a situation, a current battle, that
will go on for another four years or longer, whatever is necessary, to
save a very magnificent, not a good park, but a magnificent park, the
Brackenridge Park in San Antonio which is threatened by an ex-
pressway. This is a classic case because most controversies with
regard to the route of an expressway involve a parkway, a play-
ground, a college campus, a zoo, or some special kind of garden.
It so happens in this case that the proposed expressway invades
all of these things in one wholesale swoop, not only crosses over rec-
reational area, destroys a Girl Scout camp and nature trail, cuts across
a flood basin where water went up to a very high height with
recent floods, crosses over a roller coaster, over a huge dam, cuts
through a college campus, blocks off the extension of the municipal
school gymnasium, blocks off the entrance for the east side of the
school stadium, practically destroys the sunken gardens, and on
and on and on.
If we are to be concerned with the kind of problem facing us,
and I would like to balance or redress a little of this in balance in
tone, there are many important things in this country we must save,
but it is no good trying to save with one hand what we are losing
with the other. I fear that this is not understood and is retained in
all of our thinking. I think this is terribly important to keep in mind.
Where the fight is being carried on, we have to get a little bit more
direct action. Beauty is now politically sacrosanct. The President
of the United States has made it so.
I remember a meeting in Reno, Nev., just a few weeks ago, a
meeting of the county officials of the Midwest and Western States.
The county officials in the western areas understand what is being
talked about. The problem is what kind of programs can be
developed at the Federal level and through the Federal impact and
I think we ought to face up to this as a reality. My specific sugges-
tion would be that the rest of this session be combined with other
sessions on the design of highways and that we try to get the Presi-
dent's message to all of the agencies.
A DELEGATE. We are using the regional planning vehicle.
If you are not using it in your part of the country, let me
recommend it to you. It has been demonstrated that if districts are
organized and coordinated with the State and Federal governments,
PARKS AND OPEN SPACES 135
a group of counties within a natural watershed area can do a job
very effectively in the area of beautification, water conservation,
wildlife habitat preservation, and so on.
We are at the apex of three counties. Can you imagine trying
to save an open space area under that situation? We tried and lost.
Now we have a State law going through which is called a local
cooperation statute so a number of the municipalities in that area
can join together and bond themselves, and condemn open space land
in order to save it for our future generations.
This area is the Wolf River Basin. If you talked about zoning
to the townships a few years ago, they would run you out of town.
Today the problems are so serious they can't wait until regional
planning comes in with a program of land use, planning, and zoning.
If you want to strengthen the whole effort and want to unify the
Federal effort, regional planning is going to do this. I just attended
a national watershed conference. One of the Western State repre-
sentatives said three Federal agencies and his State had separate
programs. The Bureau of the Budget said, "Look, if you fellows
don't get together you won't get a dime."
I think the Bureau had the whip hand there; it used it, and should
have used it. Regional effort strengthens the local effort and helps
to unify its purposes.
Statements Submitted for the Record
BYRON R. HANKE. The carpeting of more millions of acres for
new homes need not thwart our efforts to provide open areas for
an urban society.
Adequate land planning for future development could be rewarded
by a dividend of half-million acres of new urban parks in the next
35 years. The vehicle through which this acreage could be provided,
improved and maintained is known as the planned-unit development
with a homes association. It can be done without extra initial costs
to developers, homebuyers or government, and without an increase
in the general tax burden.
In the planned-unit development or cluster technique for devel-
oping new residential areas, the large open spaces and recreational
areas are obtained by intensive use of land for housing in some sectors
while preserving other sectors as open space for the benefit of the
residents.
This does not necessarily alter over-all residential density patterns.
136 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
It does permit pooling of land for the greater benefit of all concerned.
The cluster technique actually reduces housing construction costs
by shortening the network of streets and utilities. If over-all density
is increased, it also reduces the raw land cost per dwelling unit.
Exemplified by Fremont, Calif., local governments are having suc-
cess with a small percentage increase in over-all density as a bonus
in local planning regulations. This encourages land developers to
use the cluster technique as a rule instead of an exception. By such
rewards the current development practice of homes without open
space could be replaced by a general practice of homes plus parks at
the same or a lower price.
President Johnson in his message to Congress earlier this year said,
"in the remainder of this century . . . urban population will double,
city land will double . . ."
At the present rate of use this means that 10 million additional
acres of land will be urbanized by the year 2000. Thus, if planned-
unit development resulted in the dedication of open space equivalent
to only 5 percent of the total new residential areas, a half million
acres of recreational open space would be added to our Nation's
inventory.
The maintenance of the open space in a planned-unit development
is assumed by a homes association in which membership of all lot
owners is automatic. The association finances its care, determines
its use, and undertakes the responsibility for its maintenance. Pri-
vate maintenance of the common open space with private funds
assumes significance in the light of Mrs. Jacobs' reminder in the panel
discussion that maintenance of many existing public parks is poor
because insufficient money is available to maintain the parks we now
have.
We need to have our parks and places of recreation where the
people are so they can be used as part of day-to-day living. A park
in a remote location which is relatively inaccessible has little meaning
in the day-to-day life of the urban dweller. Convenient access is
inherent in the planned-unit development in that the open spaces are
interrelated with the homes and intimately associated with the daily
life of the neighborhood. These association-owned parks are in-
tended to supplement the major parks, playfields and open space
reservations needed by the larger community and supported by public
funds.
The long and remarkably successful experience of automatic-
PARKS AND OPEN SPACES 137
membership homes associations is revealed in a recent study by the
Urban Land Institute of Washington, D.G. Comprehensive guide-
lines for creating successful PUDs and homes associations are avail-
able in ULFs Homes Association Handbook, in FHA's Bulletin 6 on
Planned-Unit Development, in the American Conservation Associa-
tion's publication on Cluster Development by William H. Whyte,
and in ULI's new bulletin on Legal Aspects of Planned-Unit Resi-
dential Development With Suggested Legislation. Related informa-
tion on land-use intensity and varied building types in planned-unit
development are in the statement by Richard J. Canavan, FHA
Assistant Commissioner for Technical Standards contained in the
proceedings of the panel on the New Suburbia.
In view of the opportunities in the planned unit development with
maintenance by a homes association, it is desirable that those en-
trusted with the responsibility for planning land development, devel-
oping local regulations for land subdivision, and the development of
park land take an active lead in pursuing this course of action.
BARRY F. MOUNTAIN. Suburbs sprawl, cities decay; automobiles,
filled with anxious Americans seeking a measure of serenity in their
lives, stream outward from city centers; and the cities gorge them-
selves on the ever-receding countryside. Now, while there is still
time, we must provide space in which to live and grow. We owe it
to ourselves and to generations of unborn Americans.
It is not enough to simply preserve our existing park space, or to
create open spaces in revitalized urban areas. These are solutions
for the present but, what will happen in 20 years?
We feel, based upon our own experience in urban renewal and
master planning, that it is time to take stock of all that has been
accomplished heretofore and of the challenge we face in years to
come. Are we proceeding in the right direction? Do we ourselves
have a master plan?
What we propose is the creation of a total but individual master
plan for the development of each of the 50 States. A total, com-
prehensive effort based upon principles outlined by the Federal Gov-
ernment, to be implemented through local and State initiative; one
which will compliment and reinforce the President's program to
beautify America. An effort that utilizes all of the sociological, geo-
graphical, and anthropological research available; and which pro-
vides for research into new methods and materials for recreational
use.
138 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
We know that the mind is generally little influenced by temporary
exposure to beauty. Rather, sensibilities are molded by frequent
contacts which form a meaningful, if subconscious, part of our ex-
istence. How can we expect our people to seek out beauty and
improve their condition if we provide no daily stimulus to their
lives?
Therefore, we suggest a plan which provides for the creation of
a series of parks and playgrounds beginning in urban areas and
progressing into and through the suburbs. A series of islands where
one may go to sit or walk or just be alone; places close to the city
center as well as beyond, where it is possible to walk within a grove
of trees, however small; where flowers can grow; and where grass
can reach its natural growth.
No home should be more than a few blocks walk in any direction
from an open public space (be it a city block square or 10 square
miles). We must not try to compress all types of facilities within
the same areas; rather let some islands be green with only trees,
flowers, benches and walks; let some be playgrounds with swings
and slides; and let others be athletic islands with courts and ball
fields. These islands will open the cityscape and provide a variety
of stimuli for a variety of activities; and they will add immeasur-
ably to the beauty in our everyday lives.
The White House Conference on Natural Beauty should be but
a prologue to the great things that lie ahead. Even with the energy
and direction available in this country today, there is much to be
done but, if we start now, there will still be time.
Dr. J. HAROLD SEVERAID. Sacramento County, Calif., in part
more urban than rural, has developed an ideal plan for developing
county parks and open spaces. It has already met most of the
criteria called for by Mr. Belser. Their 58-page published plan,
entitled: "A Report on the Park and Recreation Space Needs of the
Sacramento Metropolitan Area," by Pacific Planning and Research,
Sacramento, might well be investigated as a possible model. (Ad-
dress: County Planning Department, 827 Seventh Street, Sacra-
mento).
Let's start tax-exempting open space back into existence instead
of taxing it out of existence. Open space has as great a value to
man's well being as does revenue space. Take the exorbitant profit
out of land speculation and open space will be less prone to be forced
into the asphalt jungle.
PARKS AND OPEN SPACES 139
BEVERLY S. SHEFFIELD. My suggestion and recommendation is
that we search out a way to eliminate throwaway beer cans and
bottles. These throwaway containers depreciate and mar the beauty
of our parks and road rights-of-way. In many instances they are
thrown on private property. They not only create a litter problem,
but the broken glass bottles forever present a hazard. Often these
bottles are broken at swimming pools, picnic areas, and along streams.
I suggest that the beer distributors be approached on putting their
merchandise in containers that require a deposit such as the old
glass beer bottle. I also suggest that the manufacturers be asked
to come up with a product that would soon disintegrate when left
in the elements.
779-59565 10
CHAPTER 7
WATER AND WATERFRONTS
3:30 p.m., Monday, May 24
The Chairman, Mr. CLAY. Water is the great giver of life. Close
to its banks and shores men have raised their greatest cities. Without
water, civilizations wither and men perish. It is the flyway for
ducks, the great distributor of raw materials, and also common car-
rier of contamination, of the wastes of bodies human, governmental,
and corporate.
Concerned as we are with water, concerned we must therefore be
with the total environment and not merely with its bits and pieces.
More than any other at this White House conference, I think, this
panel must be especially concerned with relationships between men,
and between all the elements of their environment and the goals we
believe this environment should attain.
In an earlier America, poets have measured their waters and found
in them, not contamination, but inspiration. High in the north
Georgia hills, Sidney Lanier lived and wrote his incomparable "Song
of the Chattahoochee." The years have dealt gently with that lovely
poem, but not with the waters of that urbanizing river. I hope Mr.
Lanier's memory will not be offended if I offer a contemporary
version :
Out of the gullies of Habersham
Out of the gutters of Hall,
I try in vain to reach the plain,
Before the bulldozers get at it again,
Silted, polluted, deprived of the rain,
Members of the Panel on Water and Waterfronts were Repre-
sentative Frances P. Bolton, Henry P. Caulfield, Jr., Grady Clay
(Chairman), Representative John Dingell, Leonard Dworsky, Carl
Feiss, Senator Philip A. Hart, Christopher Tunnard, and Conrad L.
Wirth. Staff Associate was Allan Hirsch.
141
142 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
My bed is too narrow, the dumps are too wide,
I flee man's folly on every side,
He's damming and sluicing me down through the plain
Far from the gullies of Habersham,
Far from the gutters of Hall.
On today's waterfront, we deal with two parts hydrogen, one part
oxygen, three parts unregulated self-interest. Strip off all natural
protection, add an uncontrolled population, and you get the ex-
plosive mixture which confronts this conference today.
Our purpose is to get nature back into the equation; to control
man's reckless exploitation of waters and the lands to them contribu-
tory; and to recommend to the President of the United States specific
ways and means.
My task is to look first far upstream at the sources of waters ; and
then to introduce our panelists who will carry us rapidly downstream
from one recommendation to the next, pausing to look scathingly
perhaps, constructively, and not too long, at the waters, banks, adja-
cent lands, views and prospects and to recommend precise measures
to improve the quality of that environment.
We begin, as do the waters, deep in some wooded glen or in the
hollow of a hillside where water pure and undefiled gushes from the
ground. We are here at the incomparable spring, God-given source
of a mighty river. Such sources of all significant rivers should be
identified, mapped, and then protected as unique and often his-
toric elements of the landscape. They should not be drowned, de-
stroyed, or sequestered for private purpose. Protect them we must
by easements, purchase, leasehold, or other methods. If the city
of Paris can protect the source of the Seine high in the mountains
north of Dijon, cannot we do the same with sources of our great
rivers? I recommend that such a national policy should begin at
once with the source of the Potomac River, that the District of
Columbia enter upon a joint venture with the appropriate Federal
and State agencies to do this.
Next, in all that we do, we should encourage waters to walk, not run
to the nearest gravitational exits; to percolate, insoak, infiltrate.
Water has much more to do where it falls.
In this respect I hope we can devise techniques for urbanizing
the lessons and methods of the Soil Conservation Service. This will
require us to expand the provisions of the Watershed Protection and
Flood Prevention Act (Public Law 566) ; to set up regional versions
WATER AND WATERFRONTS 143
of TVA, systems of small upland reservoirs tied together in remote-
controlled, automatically regulated systems to retain more waters
where they fall, to improve the quality of upstream life and the
amount and purity of downstream waters.
We should also, in the same vein, promote municipal watersheds,
holding rainwaters close to where they fall, such as in the water-
shed protection plans of Newport News, Va., and Atchison, Kans.,
meanwhile providing the kind of recreation places which the New-
port News plan indicates.
And, while we are at it, let us stop the senseless pollution of streams
and erosion of the soils that come from unregulated earth excava-
tions, by requiring silt-holding basins or ponds as a part of all major
construction work. We might well follow the example first set here
in the Washington Metropolitan area, at Dulles Airport. Our urban
areas are fast becoming the major source of silt that clogs our streams,
and ought to be better regulated.
Mr. DWORSKY. The task of achieving the President's goal of a
beautiful America is not, admittedly, an easy one. One of the most
difficult parts will be to renew the Nation's waters and waterfronts
so that they can contribute to his goal. This discussion contains
four ideas, in furtherance of the President's goal.
1. The effective management of the Nation's waters and water-
fronts is a prerequisite if we are to gain the new conservation, the
objective of which, the President has said, "is not just man's welfare
but the dignity of man's spirit."
A major part of this prerequisite action is the control of water
pollution. But even with pollution controlled partly today or ulti-
mately tomorrow water and waterfront beauty will demand more
than just clean water.
The past third of a century has seen increasing efforts to stop water
pollution. Comparably, the Nation's major effort to turn the tide
on city slums also began in the early 1930's.
The original slum clearance and low cost public housing programs
of the 1930's have been supplemented today by new and important
goals. Some of these include the opportunity to remake our cities
into clean, well-planned, and aesthetically appealing places to work,
live, and play. Creating beautiful cities has become for many an
important objective of urban renewal.
Does "the River Beautiful" with its attendant meaning give us a
new set of goals for which to strive? If "the City Beautiful" is a
144 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
national goal and it clearly is can our goal for the Nation's waters
be less?
I suggest to the conference that the concept of stream renewal,
used in the same sense as urban renewal, should constitute a major
goal for the Nation.
Stream renewal should be a challenging concept to our water and
land managers both public and private and to those responsible
for programs involving open space, recreation, industrial parks, solid
waste disposal, and flood plain and other land zoning programs.
Stream renewal can provide the central strategic view sought this
morning by Luther Gulick around which the agencies and the public
can develop and coordinate many separate programs. It could
form a major guideline for any new council that might be established.
2. The concept of stream renewal, however, centers on the control
of pollution to insure that water is usable and reusable and to support
the highest development of lands adjoining waterfronts.
Today we can clean up only part of the pollution of our rivers,
lakes, and bays at costs presently accepted and using technology pres-
ently available. I suggest the early use of known and accepted
waste treatment technology, normally at secondary levels of treat-
ment. I further suggest that the use of this norm of treatment no
longer be debated but rather that such treatment be an accepted
axiom everywhere under conditions which I will describe, if we
are to have any hope at all of modestly controlling pollution during
the coming decade.
The significant advances that have been made in the past decade
under the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1956 lie in two
areas; municipal sewage treatment plant construction and the en-
forcement of pollution abatement on interstate waters. The first
was due in large measure to a major policy shift which provided for
the Federal Government to share in the cost of financing sewage
treatment works. The second was due to the strengthening of the
Federal role in enforcement without diminishing the possible role
of the States or interstate agencies.
For ten years the trend has continued in this direction, with a dou-
bling and a proposed tripling and quadrupling of the original $50
million participation by the Federal Government in construction aid.
Concurrently, amendments in 1961 and in current legislation affirm
the continuous desire of the Congress to strengthen the Federal en-
forcement role.
WATER AND WATERFRONTS 145
The obvious meaning of this trend is that the Congress, and the
people, are not yet satisfied with the attack that has been mounted
so far against water pollution. Every sign points to greater Federal
participation.
I believe that the single most important fact before us is that our
present technology-cost posture leaves us incapable of coping ade-
quately with the total pollution problem as it is now developing and
as it seems likely to develop in the future decade.
The alternatives before us, then, are first to place into effect, as
rapidly as we can, our known technology of sewage and industrial
waste treatment; and second to establish immediately a new and
vigorous research and development program to seek a new waste
treatment technology or significantiy improve our existing tech-
nology.
I believe that our immediate task during the next five to ten years,
must be to adopt a simple and uncomplicated process for upgrading
our treatment capability to the level of secondary waste treatment
the removal of nearly all settleable solids, oils and grease, and a major
fraction (85-90 percent) of oxygen-consuming organic materials.
Secondary waste treatment is commonplace today in municipal
waste treatment systems. Today, more than 70 percent of treatment
works are of the secondary treatment type, involving 60 percent of
the urban population provided with treatment works.
The Federal Government, too, is moving rapidly in some areas to
bring about the construction of secondary waste treatment works.
The 1961 amendments to the Federal Water Pollution Control Act,
for example, provide that water can be stored in Federal reservoirs
and used to dilute sewage and wastes, but only after "adequate
treatment" has been provided at the source of pollution. Public
Health Service policy is to define "adequate treatment" as 85 per-
cent removal of organic material and essentially all settleable solids,
or secondary treatment.
In another action the Federal Government is developing instruc-
tions for the control of sewage and wastes from 18,000 Federal in-
stallations. The general rule will require that secondary treatment
be provided unless it can be demonstrated that less treatment will
suffice.
It is my suggestion, therefore, that the Congress consider the es-
tablishment of a positive national policy, either in a resolution or as
an amendment to the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, which
146 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
would set a basic level of secondary treatment as a national floor for
sewage and industrial waste treatment subject to the following im-
portant provisions :
(a) Effective State and interstate agency enforcement of the na-
tional basic requirement;
( b ) States or interstate agencies to require more sewage and waste
treatment where necessary; and to provide for States to allow a lesser
degree of sewage and waste treatment, where it can be demonstrated
that a lesser degree of treatment will suffice, for a specified and limited
time period subject to periodic review by the State;
(c) State and interstate agencies to submit a new type of State
plan, under section 5 of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act
which presently requires the submission of a plan, and which should
outline a practicable program including a timetable for meeting the
basic national sewage and waste treatment requirements;
(d) The agency administering the Federal Water Pollution Con-
trol Act to continue the present practice of cooperating with the
States and interstate agencies in the development of an effective plan ;
(e) Effective backup enforcement by the Federal Government to
assist State and interstate enforcement efforts.
It should be clear from the foregoing that the idea of a national
policy establishing a minimum floor for sewage and waste treatment,
subject to the specified qualifications, is merely the extension of a
practice widely used and represents no major innovation. It would,
in fact, be closing a gap already initiated by the States for a majority
of the Nation's towns and cities.
Finally, when we realize that secondary treatment represents the
practical upper limit for most communities and industries during the
next decade, the value of the use of a basic treatment requirement
or floor as a practical and relatively simple administration device
becomes increasingly evident.
Questions will arise in connection with the effect of this suggestion
upon industry. Industrial wastes are not comparable in all respects
to municipal wastes. The variety and number of the components
of industrial waste make it impossible to relate secondary treatment
to all industrial wastes. This should not deter us from requesting
compliance with a minimum treatment floor for settieable solids
and organic, oxygen-consuming wastes. Specifications for the bal-
ance of industrial waste treatment will need to be worked out with
WATER AND WATERFRONTS 147
the appropriate regulatory authority, subject to a timetable and a
definite program.
Another question relates to the matter of industry and pollution
control enforcement.
The difficulty of achieving enforcement of pollution control by
States and the need for more effective controls, including the use
of basic Federal requirements, have been outlined in a report by the
U.S. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations.
The Commission states that :
. . . serious economical and political repercussions which can re-
sult from the enforcement of stringent (State regulatory) provisions
usually means that they are employed relatively rarely.
The Commission also notes that :
Perhaps the most potent constraint on State pollution control is
competition for new industry and the fear of driving existing industries
from the State. Industry, fearing the loss of competitive positions if
required to make up the tremendous backlog of industrial waste
treatment, often has threatened to move. Differentials among the
States in standards and levels of enforcement make these threats
possible.
If we as a Nation are to come anywhere near the goals that we
have set for ourselves in achieving clean water, we will need to look
equally to major policy adjustments in cost sharing, for industries
as well as municipalities, to the use of common facilities, and to new
technological advances both in industrial processes as well as in
waste treatment technology. This will be necessary if we are to be
realistic in the demands that may be placed upon the industrial seg-
ment of our society. The revised cost-sharing formulas proposed by
Governor Rockefeller and endorsed unanimously by the New York
State Legislature can be a guide to new State-Federal views on this
matter.
The suggestions in this part are concerned with strengthening the
roles of both the States and the Federal Government; of providing
an effective alternate to the proposals presently before the Congress
and offering a means of maintaining a more balanced Federal-State
relationship during the next period in this continuous effort against
water pollution.
3. For tomorrow and the longer future we will be able to control
pollution effectively to make water a contributor to national beauty,
and health and economic welfare only if we make rapid progress
148 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
in developing a new waste treatment technology or increase sig-
nificantly the effectiveness of present technology. If we do not have
this advance in technology, we will not be able to control pollution.
While the Federal water pollution research program has been
growing in many respects during the last several years, the amount
available for research aimed at new technological developments has
been severely limited. In this vital area the annual current budget
is probably about $ 1 1 / 2 million.
There is need now for advanced waste treatment technology. My
guess is that by 1975 we will be in very great need for a new tech-
nology in most parts of the Nation.
The research and development program that is called for will
require major participation by American industry and universities.
This new type of R. & D. program may require new arrangements
for financing industry's participation.
The key issue, however, is to broaden as quickly as possible the
base of investigations at a much higher probably not less than $10-
$15 million annually level of expenditure. This aspect of the na-
tional program is late now and further delay will require higher
annual outlays in the future.
4. The strength of a society such as ours rests on a well-informed
people. The public has indicated, in thousands of communities
across the land, a strong willingness to do what they have been asked
to do by their State and city officials to control pollution. More will
be demanded of them in future years.
If we are going to ask much more of them there must be expecta-
tion that what we are seeking can be achieved. The people should
have some prototypes demonstrating the achievable.
Nowhere, to my knowledge, do we have a satisfactory basinwide
cleanup to the extent currently possible for pollution control to which
our people can point and say here, in reality, is our objective. The
President has pointed the way in his comments concerning the Po-
tomac as a demonstration for the Nation's Capital. We can use an
effective demonstration program in every major section of the Na-
tion perhaps a dozen. This type of demonstration program ought
to be pursued vigorously by the States, interstate agencies, Federal
agencies, industries, cities, and land managers working in concert.
Mr. WIRTH. Water and valleys have been for years and still are
the main routes of travel. They have made great contributions to
the development of the Nation. People tend to congregate on the
WATER AND WATERFRONTS 149
shores of all types of bodies of water. It is interesting to note that
the 24 metropolitan areas with populations of a million or more are
located on rivers, lakes, and oceans. Water frontage is by far our
most expensive and most sought after real estate and it is in short
supply.
Water is a vital element; not only is it essential to human life,
but it provides the aesthetic and recreational needs of our people.
It helps create, and is an important part of, our environment.
Yet it has been the most abused of our resources. We dump into
it everything we do not want. Cities and towns use it as part of
their sewage systems. Industry fills our rivers and lakes with waste
materials, chemicals, and refuse. We destroy the natural watersheds
with bulldozers. In many cases the Federal Government has created
graveyards for ships in some of the most scenic sections of our rivers.
We allow commercial developments and residential communities
to be constructed on natural flood plains and then expend untold
millions of dollars on flood disaster relief.
We permit private exploitation of coastal barrier sand dunes
only to have homes and towns washed away, along with what is
left of the coastal barrier sand dunes. Then, following storms, we
expend millions trying to reclaim the sand dunes and provide relief
for those who were responsible for their destruction.
These are the conditions. While there is an awakening and a
growing awareness of the problem, no adequate solution has yet
been developed.
I realize research must go on in these things, but there are certain
steps we must take right now and I have four suggestions to make.
I propose :
1. That a pollution abatement tax of 1 mill be levied on every
gallon of contaminated water that is dumped into our streams, rivers,
lakes, bays, and oceans; that 75 percent of the funds that result be
set aside for research and the cleaning up of our waters and prevent-
ing further pollution. This should produce several billion dollars
a year. Matched in part by State and local funds from bond issues,
backed perhaps by a similar tax, this measure would go a long way
toward pollution abatement over a period of ten years.
2. That 25 percent of the above pollution abatement tax money be
used to purchase rights that would prevent undesirable uses of flood
plains and barrier dunes and would provide access rights to 10 percent
of our shores. This would include streams, rivers, lakes, bays, and
150 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
ocean fronts. This action would not be in conflict with the objec-
tives of the Land and Water Act, as this is an access and protection
right and would not prevent other uses compatible with these rights ;
the Land and Water Act provides for the purchase and development
of park and recreation areas.
3. That a plan be worked out with the States to set up watershed
protection areas; and that over-all valley zoning regulations be estab-
lished which will provide land use controls whether Federal, State,
or private land to insure protection against pollution of streams,
rivers, and lakes through land erosion and other land misuses.
4. That there be established a Federal Water Control Commis-
sion that would pass on all manmade devices associated with water
impoundments, diversions, and other unnatural uses of our rivers and
streams to insure that all economic and human needs and uses are
fully considered and protected before any such project is under-
taken. This Commission would be made up of officials and citizen
members and their decision would be final and they could only be
vetoed by an act of Congress.
These suggestions are based on the principle that all navigable
waters are a natural resource under Federal control. It is a respon-
sibility of the Federal Government to show leadership and to take
the necessary steps to protect this essential natural resource. Surely
we cannot achieve the greatest natural beauty potential when our
streams, rivers, lakes, bays, and ocean shores are being used as sewage
disposal facilities and their inherent scenic grandeur ravaged by man.
The suggestions are also based on the principle that the user pays
the bill which is now a well established principle, such as our highway
funds, and Land and Water Act, just to name a few.
Representative DINGELL. My friend, Senator Hart, expresses his
regrets but the voting rights bill precludes his presence here today.
I am reading the paper prepared by Senator Hart. The subject
assigned the Senator today was the question of acquisition of needed
waterfront areas for recreation purposes. Throughout the com-
ments you heard by the other panelists today, you note there is a
need for haste. In this area there is also a need for haste.
In introducing one of the shorelines preservation bills eight or
ten years ago, I found there was a third of an inch of shoreline space
per person across the country. With the land use and erosion and
the American bulldozer, the figure has declined since that time.
Now, let me read the Senator's statement.
WATER AND WATERFRONTS 151
Statement of Senator HART. In this setting there is no need to
argue the case for the acquisition of needed waterfront areas for
recreation purposes. Everyone in this room is well aware of the
findings of the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission
Report and the many other studies which call attention to our vanish-
ing shoreline.
The point I would hope to make here today is that, although the
case for action has been made over and over again, we are not moving
fast enough. Every day that passes, additional stretches of shoreline
disappear from public view behind the "Private Property No Tres-
passing" signs.
It is truly a case, as the Pennsylvania Dutch say, of "The faster I go,
thebehinderlget."
Or, as one of my constituents wrote me, our Michigan slogan
"Water Wonderland" will soon be all too true the average man will
wonder where the water is.
The States are slow in reacting to the need because of lack of finan-
cial resources. The Congress, while making some notable progress
on acquisition of areas of national significance, has not yet saved some
of our last remaining beautiful shorelines. Will we ever be able to
save Indiana Dunes, Oregon Dunes, our Sleeping Bear Dunes in
Michigan, and Assateague?
In addition to the obvious political problems which are difficult if
not impossible to straighten out, there are always powerful voices of
one sort or another seeking to bring us to a screeching halt.
No one wants to railroad through the Congress a measure of the
dimensions of these shoreline bills. Many people are affected, and we
must be responsive to their concern. But while we labor over these
proposals ad infinitum, they begin to price themselves out of our
reach.
Let me sound a note of warning on the price situation. At home
in Michigan the property owners at Sleeping Bear are even as you
and I would be worried whether they will receive adequate com-
pensation for their property if they decide to sell. Actually, all our
experience is that the price of land within these recreation areas rises
so substantially that we may as a nation and as taxpayers find our-
selves barred from Federal acquisition.
To illustrate. My information is that Point Reyes in California,
for which we planned to spend $14 million in acquisition, may cost
$40 million ; Padre Island in Texas is likely to go up from $5 million
to $16 million; Cape Cod from $16 million to $35 or $40 million.
152 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
When you consider that the Land and Water Conservation Fund,
in which we have taken so much comfort, will make available on an
average $200 million a year, of which $80 million a year will be
available to the Federal Government, we can appreciate the bind we
will shortly be in if our shoreline acquisitions are going to run at $40
to $50 million each.
Those of us on the panel were asked to avoid a recitation of the
problem, and to move to recommendations for action.
1 . Clearly my first recommendation and I hope, as the sponsor of
both the Sleeping Bear and Pictured Rocks proposals, I am not being
too self-serving would be that the Congress act as promptly as
possible to save as many of the remaining areas as possible.
2. Second, we need to take a very good look at land presently under
Federal ownership to be sure we don't turn loose any that might serve
for recreation.
3. Third, we will probably have to develop soon less expensive
means of acquisition. These might include :
(a) Reviving the good old-fashioned custom of people giving
land to the Federal Government, such as was done in the Great
Smokies National Park. Here, very real tax incentives might be
devised ;
(b) Developing a combination of smaller Federal acreage sur-
rounded by a "buffer zone" where either scenic easements or con-
trolled use, such as we have evolved at Pictured Rocks, could preserve
the scenic and recreation values;
(c) Permitting the National Park Service to acquire option on
tracts pending Congressional action on the authorizing legislation;
(d) Encouraging the private conservation foundations to use
their funds to take option on tracts when the first steps are taken
toward Federal acquisition, thus holding the cost within bounds;
(e) And finally, of course, urging the States to move as rapidly
as they are able, particularly where this would result in lower cost.
Perhaps one or more of these steps, combined with more vigorous
land use planning and zoning, will help us preserve some of the
beauty we have inherited.
Particularly will this be necessary, in my opinion, as we move ahead
with a national system of scenic roads and parkways. We must not
permit ribbons of concrete to be strung along our presently remote
shorelines, destroying the very scenery we seek to enjoy. And more
WATER AND WATERFRONTS 153
than a "corridor" needs to be preserved ; clearly it is going to be neces-
sary to write the authorizing legislation in such a fashion as to require
State and local land use planning to protect the natural beauty in
some depth.
In all these matters, I trust we will act promptly, with wisdom and
courage, that those who inherit this land from us will not judge us
harshly.
Representative DINGELL. I would like to conclude with a few re-
marks of my own. I suspect everyone in this room has reason to
judge our forebears very harshly for the mess they left us. The fact
we have what we have remaining to us in this country is attributed to
the Almighty who bestowed on our forebears not very long past one
of the most bounteous lands as has yet been found by mankind.
There remains both little time and little in the way of resources to
preserve it.
Mr. Dworsky said we should plan for secondary treatment of our
pollution. As one from the Congress who has worked on this sub-
ject, I would like to comment briefly. There are some specific
legislative proposals pending before the Congress which would in-
crease the amount of Federal grants to be supported by State and
local matching funds for sewage treatment works from $ 1 00 million
to $150 million; which would provide for the use of subpoena in
water pollution abatement; and which would establish either water
pollution criteria for the States in the House bill, which is deficient
in this particular, or Federal water pollution standards in the Sen-
ate bill, which is a superior proposal. Mr. Dworsky seems to have
come forward with what may well be a very useful resolution to the
problem that exists between the House and Senate with regard to
this particular bill.
The issue that I choose to take with Mr. Dworsky is that we are
going to find by the year 2000 that secondary treatment is not ade-
quate. We will find in most instances that secondary treatment in
the immediate, foreseeable future is going to leave such a bountiful
supply of phosphate and nitrates that waters are going to be subject
to noxious algal growth. There are right now plants in existence
whose effluent can be drunk safely and which contribute a minimum
amount of algal growth. Indeed, there is one in the Eastern United
States which runs right into a reservoir of one of our major cities
with no hazard either to the quality of the reservoir or ultimate purity
of the water that comes out of the tap.
154 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
In the resolution of the problem of water pollution, or the problem
of acquisition of land, or any of the other things we have to face
we better think big. What I say is this. Let us not just think in
terms of secondary treatment. Let us not just think in terms of re-
search. Let us think about a meaningful program on the Federal
and State level. And, I would like to point out, there is not a State
water pollution control agency anywhere in the boundaries of the
Continental United States which is doing the kind of job it should
be doing. Unless they buckle down, the States are going to find
that we in Congress who feel the only way that this matter can be
handled is by a vigorous Federal program are going to increasingly
succeed and are going to find the abatement of water pollution will
be conducted, at least on navigable waters, by the Federal Govern-
ment.
Mr. TUNNARD. The short paper outlined here will stress scenic and
cultural possibilities of water and waterfronts, leaving the grave prob-
lems of pollution, erosion, and loss of wildlife to more qualified con-
tributors. The paper will stress the importance of the waterfront
as part of the national patrimony, in an attempt to correct the current
image of it as a refuse dump for objectionable land uses.
Since I am a city planner, the paper will give more attention to
urban waterfronts in the built-up and often decayed parts of our
cities.
The solutions will stress the use of historic and scenic preservation
methods, public and private, coupled with upgraded technology and
new governmental strategies.
Think of an urban waterfront river, lake, or ocean and be
reminded of its blighted condition. It is a refuse dump, perhaps, the
garbage filling in the space between rotting piers, where once proud
clipper ships or river steamers rode the ways. Or, lately, some huge
new installation like a powerplant or a nest of oil storage tanks may
have been erected on new fill, blocking off the view of the water.
Or, equally bulky and also noisy, a giant freeway may interrupt the
prospect, with its thousands of shiny automobiles and trailer trucks.
Access will also be blocked; and in many American cities, the resi-
dents are scarcely aware that their city is water-based. They are,
in 1965, conditioned to travelling many miles for a glimpse of open
water. The 2 -year battle that was recently fought and won for
Breezy Point Park in New York City, the last new beach available to
WATER AND WATERFRONTS 155
subway riders, is an example of the energy that must be put into
claiming waterfronts for the public.
Paradoxically, the very existence of decay on the waterfront gives
Americans a second chance to improve its appearance and amenities.
Although there is still competition for land on the water's edge, the
existence of decay is evidence that certain older uses are no longer
necessary there and that we should be thinking seriously of the kind
of uses which should replace them. Some older harbor cities no
longer consider the harbor as part of their economy long-range
truck transportation has been a major factor here and the result
is that refuse and objectionable land uses like wrecking yards find
their way to the shoreline.
There is already in existence a trend to reclaim those areas for com-
munity use. The new Liberty State Park (part of the Statue of
Liberty National Monument in New York Harbor ) will be designed
on the site of old wharves and ancient industries in Jersey City. It
will be the only waterfront park on that stretch of upper New York
Bay.
Why should not the new land uses at the waterfront provide an
amenity rather than a hazard to health or an eyesore? If the econ-
omy no longer requires so much industry or commerce on the water-
front, why cannot we consider it for more pleasurable uses? The
answer is: we can. Our urban waterfronts can be treated as a
new resource for the economy of leisure. But there must be safe-
guards, or they will be despoiled all over again in the very name of
the public. Of this, more anon.
The San Francisco waterfront provides an illustration of the pos-
sibilities of reclamation. There are piers all the way around from
Fisherman's Wharf to the China Basin. They were built in a gener-
ation when visions of expanding world trade coupled with an al-
ready obsolete docking technology led shipping and port authorities
to "cover the waterfront" with these facilities.
Today, one marginal berthing facility of sufficient width could
accommodate all the ocean-going ships ever to be found at one time
in San Francisco Bay.
San Francisco's Marine Museum at the Embarcadero, with its six
vessels giving a realistic picture of life aboard ship in former times,
shows what can be done by private enterprise in an educational way.
New York City has as yet nothing like this. The idea of recreational
piers put forward by Jane Jacobs for the latter city deserves imple-
779-59565 11
156 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
mentation. Here recreational programs could join hands with his-
toric preservation, saving for posterity the Chelsea Piers built for
Mayor McClellan by the noted architect, Whitney Warren.
A combination of technical know-how and local-to-State govern-
ment strategy is necessary to renovate our waterfronts. The inertia
of years and of obsolete institutions must be overcome. Further, the
existence of rotting piers and abandoned ferry slips has encouraged
inappropriate commercial enterprise to fill land and even to make
new islands in historic harbors. On these reclaimed areas (some
of them provided by Federal dredging operations) motel-marina
developments are promoted, with free public access banned. Some
of them are even braving existing conditions of pollution in order
to stake their claim.
Not only new commercial facilities, but new industrial and public
utilities projects are underway on waterfront land. Many of these
are only there because public regulations have not been devised to
keep them away. For example, although oil is still brought in by
ship on much of our coastline, the new pipelines have made it un-
necessary for oil storage tanks to be located exclusively on the water-
front. Where it must be carried by ship, oil can be pumped inland
to more suitable locations in many areas.
Similarly, long-term land contract agreements could insure the re-
moval of scrap metal yards on waterfront land ( a common present-
day use ) , with a view to future inland location or to coming advance
in technology demanding less space. We should not be thinking
of renovating our coasts in short-term measures. They are worth
considerable negotiation and trouble.
Meanwhile, new highways are usurping the best waterfront sites,
much as the railroads did in the 1 9th century. A spectacular example
is the area of Harlem west of Broadway between 125th and 135th
Streets which is losing its view of the river with the addition of three
highway viaducts.
Recommendations for various types of action occur below :
1. To insure the urban waterfront becoming a cultural resource,
establish urban waterfront districts along the lines of the soil conserva-
tion districts, set up by the States and counties. These to be staffed
and funded from Washington, and to include in a planning staff an
architectural historian, a biologist, city planner, park planner, etc.
The districts would not replace port authorities, which are not
concerned with scenic character, but supplement their activities. It
WATER AND WATERFRONTS 157
is possible that they might have a task force character and turn over
their functions to existing county or State planning bodies.
2. The urban waterfront districts should establish scenic zones
on the lines of Item 16 in UNESCO'S "Recommendation concern-
ing the Safeguarding of the Beauty and Character of Landscapes
and Sites," December 11, 1962. In these zones permission would
have to be obtained for new installations, including highways.
3. Historic district legislation should be applied to waterfront
land wherever appropriate. For example, when Brooklyn Navy
Yard is given over to a new use, the Admiral's house, the Martin
Thompson Hospital and a surrounding historic area should be pre-
served for the public, since for a long time, beginning with the assem-
bling of the Monitor, the history of this area has been the history of
the U.S. Navy.
In some waterfront situations, linear historic districts can be estab-
lished. In all cases the planning district, as my colleague, Harold
Wise, has suggested, should be at least six blocks deep, to allow for
consolidation of existing railroad uses, etc.
4. County boards of supervisors should refuse permits for shore-
line development unless sewerage is taken care of by the developers.
Example: The current activities of the gambling and subdivision
promotion dynasty on the south shore of Lake Tahoe, which are
turning the lake into a sewer.
5. New installations of public utilities and water-needing indus-
tries, not to mention the high-rise apartments which threaten historic
scenic areas like the Annapolis waterfront, require coordinated plan-
ning on the part of regional authorities. In many cases, they do
not belong on the urban waterfront at all. Think what this means
when it is admitted that the urban shore of Connecticut now extends
from the New York State line to New Haven. The historic district,
which can save 18th century harbors like Greenwich, and pleasant
19th century fishing villages like Stonington, cannot be expected to
do the whole job in these cases.
The real significance of the conflict between scenic preservation-
ists and Consolidated Edison in the New York region is that this pub-
lic utility serves 10 million now, and that the population of this area
will probably increase by 80 percent by the year 2000. Regional
planning boards which do not replace but are superimposed upon
existing levels of administration are badly needed in these areas.
They can be formed of associations of local governments, with demo-
158 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
cratic representation. In some matters they should be empowered
to deal directly with Washington.
This is not the occasion on which to describe a regional authority.
I would merely add that private corporations might assist in the
location process by hiring environmental designers and wildlife ex-
perts on their own staffs.
To end with a slogan : Access to urban waterfront, both physically
and visually, will give our citizens that sense of enlarged freedom,
which, exactly 100 years ago, Frederick Law Olmsted claimed for
the U.S. public park movement.
Mr. FEISS. Urban water must become an accepted part
of our inalienable rights in the pursuit of happiness and life. Our
designs must contribute to happiness or they are worthless. There-
fore, the urban water part of such designs should take advantage
of all urban water opportunities at any scale and of any kind, be
they natural or manmade, be they seashore, river or lake, marinas,
fountains, ponds or any combination of these.
In all great cities of the world and in many small ones, from
Peking or Stockholm to Viterbo, wherever water could be made
available it has been used in the city planning process for utility and
enjoyment. In the United States only three major cities have made
superlative use of their urban water resources for beauty and recrea-
tion. They are: Chicago, with its magnificent Lake Michigan
waterfront parks; Minneapolis, with its wonderful chain of in-city
lakes, and San Antonio, with its delightful downtown river. Curi-
ously, although these examples have existed for years, their influence
has been minimal.
The tradition of urban water design over a period of the last 65
or 75 years has been slow in building up, with lack of recognition
of the advantages of some of the great work that has been done in
the past. There are, however, exciting new urban water programs
in a number of our cities, and these are well worth watching. Re-
cent waterfront improvements are noteworthy in Detroit, Cleveland,
Boston, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and others.
Most American cities either are indifferent or apparently power-
less to combat ugliness of urban water or the destruction of already
created values. I sincerely regret, and this has been mentioned
earlier, that the highway designers and the highway planners are
elsewhere engaged this afternoon. For instance, Metropolitan
Cleveland has been desperately trying to save the lovely chain of
WATER AND WATERFRONTS 159
Shaker Lake parks. At any moment a major superhighway may go
down the center of these lakes and destroy them. This common
danger is found in places too numerous to mention, and highways
have irrevocably polluted innumerable urban shorelines.
City after city is losing course to the new autocrats in our de-
mocracy. ( I somewhat hesitate to contradict our beloved First Lady
who said there is no longer autocracy here.) Somehow we must
equate human values with natural values, monetary values, and
utility.
Is there a computer capable of so doing? I say, no, and I say that
we cannot continue to lose ground on open space and urban waters
to incompatible and all-devouring use.
I urge the Federal Government to recognize what its various hands
are doing. I urge the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation, the Housing
and Home Finance Agency, and the various Federal highway, power,
conservation, and other interests to get together and present to the
general public a unified action program which will state that our
all too pitiful open space capital be preserved and helped by them.
The present reign of terror must be stopped forever.
I urge the President to note this serious domestic problem.
In passing, we cannot fail to mention the temptations to the
State and the local levels when the goal of Federal aid is temptingly
dangled.
Urban based metropolitan park systems with ocean, lake, and
stream orientation will be found in Washington, D.G., Boston, New
York City, Cleveland, and others, but nowhere enough for present
or future populations. Vastly enlarged urban service open space
programs using stream systems and water bodies are imperative.
Decorative uses of water in American cities are growing in urban
design importance. The older great fountains in Orlando, Chicago,
and Philadelphia are having influence but the newer downtown
mall fountains and pools included also in central city renewal projects
are encouraging.
As recommended in the Community Renewal Plan financed by
the Urban Renewal Administration of the Housing and Home
Finance Agency, the city of Rochester, N.Y., has just published the
first municipally financed complete inner-city river inventory and
improvement study for the Genesee. Urban renewal powers will
be used in Rochester in selected riverfront areas. In New Bedford,
Boston, Philadelphia, New Haven, Annapolis, Buffalo, Louisville,
Nashville, Baltimore, Georgetown, District of Columbia, and others,
160 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
renewal is being effectively used or proposed for waterfront beautifi-
cations and improvements.
These program requirements are suggested:
1. Needed on a national scale are inventories and design plans
as part of general plans and urban designs for all city, town, and
village waterfronts and water area designs. Federal and State financ-
ing of such inventories and design plans will be essential.
2. Urban renewal powers should be used on an extended scale
for creation of new inner-city parks and waterfront improvements.
Financing of major improvements such as flood control dams, dikes,
retaining walls and landscaping will need Federal aid. Grants for
urban beautification in the pending Housing Act of 1965 should
clearly include shorelines and water bodies as open space and public
land.
3. Urban metropolitan river systems such as the Hudson or the
Delaware from Trenton, N.J., to Wilmington, Del., or the San
Francisco Bay area should be planned for multipurpose uses with
appearance, recreation, and utility in balance. Federal and State
aid will be essential both for planning and effectuation.
4. Preservation of all historic values in waterfronts is essential
as in New Bedford, Annapolis, Savannah, and New Orleans. Here
again, renewal powers are either essential or desirable.
5. The urbanizing ocean coasts, Great Lakes shores, and major
river systems require landscape protection and beautification which
must be added to Federal legislation for river basin commissions
and the establishment of a national water resources council as per
multipurpose planning policy procedures recommended by the Presi-
dent's Water Resources Council in May 1962 and current legislative
proposals.
6. New urban coasts as in Connecticut, Florida, and southern Cali-
fornia are essential to maximize water usage and improve appearance
of water bodies, provide storm control, bathing, boating, and wild-
life protection.
7. Pollution elimination is universally mandatory. Federal and
State laws and financial aid are required. All urban rivers should
be clean enough for swimming.
8. National harbors and ports are a disgrace. Cleanup and re-
building programs are imperative to promote efficiency, beauty and
sanitation.
These methods are suggested:
WATER AND WATERFRONTS 161
1. Continuing national review of all current Federal, State, and
local legislation and budgets relating to above requirements.
2. Legislative drafting systems to meet inadequacies of current
programs.
3. Organization of special interest groups for promotion of pro-
grams, including all related professional organizations.
4. Research, design experiments and competitions, public educa-
tion.
There are currently before Congress, several legislative programs
which specifically relate to our interest this afternoon. There is
S. 21 or H.R. 1111, a bill providing for the optimum development
of the Nation's natural resources through the coordinated planning
of water and related resources, through the establishment of a Water
Resources Council and River Basin Planning Commissions and
through providing financial assistance to the States in order to in-
crease State participation in such planning. The United States
has been divided into river basins which these river basin com-
missions will supervise.
The law does not specifically state as yet that beautification is a
major and essential function of any of these commissions. I want
to urge that the pending legislation be amended or clarified so that
the sections dealing with river basin commissions and their func-
tions will go beyond and I am quoting here "the preparing
and keeping up to date of a comprehensive, joint plan for Federal,
State, and local and nongovernmental resources," and so on. For
the collection of data, planning, and construction of projects, I urge
that the purpose of this conference be instilled into this legislation.
My recommendations for programs are based somewhat on that,
and the other pending bill that Mr. Slayton mentioned this morning,
the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1965 and section 805
which provides for urban beautification and improvement. This
bill, as it is presently written, and it has just been reported out of the
House committee, provides for Federal aid for the beautification of
land and the comprehensive plan development of a locality for the
greater use and enjoyment of open space and other public lands
in urban areas. Of course, nothing could be more important, but
the law, as presently written, does not include an open space on
waterfronts or water areas, and I urge that we seriously consider
and recommend to the appropriate Members of Congress and to the
President that this be clarified so there is no question that water-
fronts and land are included in this beautification and improvement
162 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
program. We should make certain that we get started this year
on this program.
Mr. CAULFIELD. I have been asked to speak this afternoon con-
cerning the Federal, State, and local planning process as envisioned
by legislation about to be passed, from the point of view of getting
all the values that we seek in our society fulfilled through this water
and related land planning device.
My colleagues this afternoon have made specific suggestions for
beautification and greater direct human use of urban waterfronts
along rivers, lakes, harbors, and seacoast. This residential, recrea-
tional, scenic, fish and wildlife use of such water-related land areas
is in direct conflict with long-standing use of waterfronts as indus-
trial locations, railroad terminals and navigation ports.
Also, as urban areas expand, the issue arises as to the appropriate
use of stretches of rivers that will be urban 50 or 60 years from now.
For example, as metropolitan Washington expands this would in-
volve the Potomac between here and Harpers Ferry. Urban areas,
now and in the future, are parts of large river basins. What we
need, as I see it, is much better and more intensive Federal, State,
and local comprehensive planning to obtain the type of well-planned
action that participants in this conference so greatly desire.
On the Potomac, as President Johnson has directed, we are con-
ducting a special planning effort to make it a model of conservation
for the whole country. But, more broadly, we are on the threshold
of greatly improved water and related land resource basin planning
throughout the country. Now in conference between the House of
Representatives and the Senate, and expected to pass soon, is the
Water Resources Planning Act which Mr. Feiss has already made
reference to. Under title II of that act, Federal-State River Basin
Planning Commissions can be established, chaired by an appointee
of the President and on which the Federal agencies concerned and
the States will be represented.
The traditional Federal involvement in rivers has been principally
in developing them for water supply, flood control, navigation,
power, and more recently pollution control. Now the related land
areas can come into their own, as I see it. First, we have the finan-
cial help provided by last year's enactment of the Land and Water
Conservation Fund to provide funds for land acquisition. We have
the Open Space Act and the amendments which will broaden and
strengthen it. We are getting a new focus on urban renewal, hope-
WATER AND WATERFRONTS 163
fully, from this conference. There are the proposed landscaping
enhancement proposals before the Congress, to which reference has
already been made. These, of course, are worthy of your support.
I would refer also to the Wild Rivers bill. The Wild Rivers bill
is not just concerned with the wilderness areas of our country. It
has advanced sharply the concept of alternative use of rivers for
scenic beauty versus storage for uses such as water supply, flood con-
trol, and power. Experience on rivers such as the Hudson and St.
Croix has shown the need for this.
It is an essential fact of planning that we plan for alternatives. In
this way the public can express its desire, where for example, the
cheaper plans might desecrate beauty. But water-related land will
never be properly planned, if State and local governments are not
full partners in the planning process. This is the importance, as I
see it, of title II of the Water Resources Planning Act, for it is they
who must plan to make specific renewal of waterfront lands.
Under our constitutional system it cannot be the Federal bureau-
crats who do the specific planning for waterfront lands. It must
be non-Federal people working on the subject. It is the State and
local function to zone industrial location from the standpoint of scenic
beauty and from the point of view of handling the pollution prob-
lem, both air and water. It is they who must regulate urban and
suburban erosion of land as a source of pollution. It cannot be the
Federal Government. Pollution control generally, including sewage
treatment, is a local function supplemented on interstate and navi-
gational bases by Federal law. It is very important to always remem-
ber that State and local governments must provide, one way or
another, the organized source to meet the reimbursement require-
ments of the Federal Government for many developments which are
provided under Federal legislation.
Not only do Federal, State, and local governments require an
official planning environment as provided under title II of the Water
Resources Planning Act, but the private groups will become even
more important than ever in the past, by reason of the concerns of
this conference. It is only private groups which are organized in
the community to recognize the values of wild rivers, or scenic beauty,
or recreational requirements for clean water. They provide a con-
sciousness in the basin and in the city of these values. It is through
them that these values are discussed in the newspapers and elsewhere.
It is only in this environment that the Federal, State, and local gov-
164 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
ernment planners can be responsive in preparing alternative plans
that could possibly meet these very needs of the people in the
community.
It is not only on the Potomac where we have a historic problem,
for 50 years, of considering how the river should be used. Right now,
as many of you know, San Francisco Bay may be filled in and a large
residential development established. In San Francisco Bay, unless
these questions of alternative use of the area as a scenic and recrea-
tional resource are fully discussed and private people participate
along with the government planners, we will have a result which I
am sure many of us would not want 50 years from now.
The Great Lakes are another area of great concern where this type
of Federal, State, and local planning is required. The hopeful de-
velopment in Jersey City towards turning waterfront areas into park-
lands associated with the Statue of Liberty is a beginning in the way
of waterfront renovation.
I suggest that we, at Federal, State, local, and private levels, are
on the threshold of new opportunity with the Water Resources
Planning Act. I trust that we will all support this type of endeavor
to realize all the values that can be achieved from our water and
related land, not only for the waterfront but for the whole basin
in each of our river basins.
Representative BOLTON. First, I want to thank Mr. Feiss for
mentioning Shaker Lakes in Cleveland. They are the last bit of
beauty we have left and the unconscionable engineers are consider-
ing putting a highway through them, just to let a few people get to
the bus a little faster. We feel poisonous about that.
It is also very good to note that the President has called for the
Potomac to be the model for the various things that we all hope will
be accomplished.
It is especially good having this conference put emphasis on new
methods. We can no longer use the old ways, when preservation of
natural beauty was primarily in private hands. I am happy to be
able to bring to you something of a new method which has been
tried.
The decade ending this month has been one of incredible change
in the preservation-conservation movement.
My task today is to report to you on that change as we, in the
Accokeek Foundation have lived through it, and to indicate the new
areas of change we see ahead.
WATER AND WATERFRONTS 165
As an example, let us take the events as they have evolved concern-
ing the most famous of our national shrines, Mount Vernon, the
home of our first President, George Washington.
A decade ago, we set out to protect the visual environment of
Mount Vernon, America's No. 1 historical shrine.
Up to that time, preservation was primarily in private hands.
For example, a century ago, Mount Vernon itself was offered to both
the Federal Government and the State of Virginia for preservation.
Both refused.
A frail woman, Ann Pamela Cunningham, undertook the task,
created the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association of the Union. This
private group purchased and still preserves this national shrine.
Miss Cunningham's parting injunction was, "Let one spot in this
grand country of ours be saved from change. Upon you rests this
duty."
In 1955 the Maryland shore opposite Mount Vernon was threat-
ened with the wave of expansion from the District of Columbia.
An oil tank farm was projected for the shoreline in the center
of the view that thrills millions of visitors each year.
As Vice Regent from Ohio of the Mount Vernon Ladies' As-
sociation, I accepted Miss Cunningham's charge, and I used some
funds which had come to me by inheritance to acquire the property
to preserve it.
This was just the beginning. During the next few years, additional
land was acquired by the Accokeek Foundation, and others came
to our aid.
Then the unthinking local agency, armed with the power of
eminent domain, determined to condemn the land we sought to
preserve to use for a sewage treatment plant and its attendant de-
velopment.
No private entity could withstand that threat. We had to seek
government help.
No help was available from local or State governments. This
forced the Congress to counter the local threat. In 1 96 1 the area was
delineated as a national park, based on lands to be donated by the
foundations along the riverfront, and donations by private owners
of science easements on a much greater area.
Skeptics in government predicted freely that no scenic easements
by the average citizens would ever be donated. They stated outright
166 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
that government purchase was the only solution which had ever
worked.
In this day of big government and big corporations, it sometimes
seems that the individual has become superfluous, and the great
engines of government and corporations will replace him. But our
project created a place for the individual. I am proud to report
that the owners of 120 parcels of land have voluntarily donated
scenic easements on their own properties to make the project possible.
This is the greatest joining together of private, foundation, and
governmental effort in such an undertaking.
In recognition of the generosity of private landowners' contri-
butions, the State of Maryland has pioneered tax reform legislation
to encourage donation of easements. To make this possible, it was
necessary to amend the State constitution, pass statewide policy legis-
lation, and then to amend the State Tax Code, and ultimately to
change the county codes. But this model tax reform which brings
local tax and natural beauty policies into harmony, is now well on
its way to completion, for all to examine.
Our task is far from finished. But we have explored some exciting
new roads. The inquiries which come to us from many States in our
Union, and from foreign lands, show the rising interests in these
new looks of preservation, and the part the individual can play.
The officials of the executive departments, who jeered at our efforts,
now cheerfully follow the path.
I have often felt there will never be enough money in the public
treasury to do all that is necessary for preservation and conservation
of natural beauty. But there is no limit to what imaginative pro-
grams utilizing new approaches to public and private cooperation
can do.
The experience of our first decade is heartening proof of this belief.
Because we had a problem which could not be solved by existing
methods and could not wait, we had to pioneer some of these new
techniques of preservation. We have made only a beginning.
The next step is clear. This White House conference must now
call for a major effort to develop the tremendous potential locked
up in new types of public-private cooperation. Through this effort,
we can, and will, evolve new and better tools for preservation and
conservation, on a much broader base.
We of the Accokeek Foundation are ready to help to the best of
our ability if you do your part.
WATER AND WATERFRONTS 167
Questions and Discussion
HAROLD WISE. I want to make some remarks about the Army
Corps of Engineers. I think it is high time that we stopped toler-
ating the shocking and brutal actions of the Army Corps of Engineers.
I did a redevelopment planning job in the downtown, central
area of Santa Cruz, Calif., about ten years ago. This area was less
than a mile from the ocean and a part of a major seaside resort.
They had had a flood and the Corps was improving the channel
of the San Lorenzo River through the middle of the project. We
wanted to take advantage of this opportunity and to make a pleasant
and attractive park around the river. We proposed a grass lined
channel as wide as necessary for flood control purposes but we lost
the battle to the riprap-efficiency boys of the Corps of Engineers.
To this day I cannot understand their reasoning.
I brought a book along called "The Wonder of Water" by Erie
Stanley Gardner; if it is good enough for Perry Mason, it is good
enough for me. Let me quote about the Sacramento River :
Miles and miles of trees have been torn up. The once picturesque
lagoons have become mere canals fenced in with rock-faced levees.
California has lost much of its scenic and recreational charm as a
result. If, within the next three or four years, we are told that our
systems of dams, millions of dollars invested, have lessened the
damages of floods, the barren, treeless levees with the rock-faces re-
flecting shimmering heat will be a tragic reminder of our national
disregard for natural beauty and our passion to destroy and change
in blind worship of the god of efficiency.
I recommend legislation that would provide that each and every
flood control project of the Army Corps of Engineers be referred to
the governor of the State within which this takes place for comment
and recommendation as to the natural beauty impact of the proposed
public works.
Mrs. DONALD MCLAUGHLIN. Mr. Chairman and members of
the panel, it is very heartening that you are aware of the plight of
Lake Tahoe and San Francisco Bay; in fact, the waters of Lake
Tahoe can turn brown and two-thirds of San Francisco Bay can be
filled.
As a delegate from California, I wish to propose that the out-
standing water areas of the United States be designated national
168 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
scenic water recreational landmarks and be safeguarded from any
public or private projects and programs that might destroy their
beauty. Among areas in California with which we are deeply con-
cerned are San Francisco Bay and Lake Tahoe.
We suggest that criteria for determining the public interest in all
major water areas be established for the immediate guidance of
local, State, and Federal agencies.
WILLIAM MOORE. Engineers have not fared very well here. I
think that some of this criticism is no doubt justified, but I also
think it is well to remember that engineers design what the people
and clients are willing to pay for. Mrs. Owings made some refer-
ence to that this morning. Even the Army Engineers, I think,
would be glad to design facilities which had the qualities that we
would like. Being a boater and liking to go up the Sacramento
River, I endorse the comments about the Sacramento River. How-
ever, what is needed is some basis for criteria.
Every project, even a beautiful one, must have a price tag. We
need some way and I think this is not impossible to assess or ap-
praise a budget for the incremental values that we would like to see
built into these projects. I think this can be done on the basis of an
objective appraisal as to the over-all impact in the area and in the
community. This is not easy, and it cannot be done precisely, but I
think it would be worth the study.
Mrs. BOLTON. Will the gentleman yield?
I would like to say that I would be reluctant to agree if it were
always based on cost. The price is not the ultimate thing. Beauty
is the ultimate.
SAM ZISMAN. I would like to make a partial response to this and a
proposal or suggestion.
One of the problems involved is not the absolute cost of any given
individual program, but the way funds are available or used among
a number of programs. This seems to me one of the hurts of our
present approach. It seems to me that somehow we have got to
find methods, approaches, means to make use of the funds which are
made available, both public and private, to do the greatest job pos-
sible, not any particular separate program. Part of the difficulty,
for example, with the programs of the Corps of Engineers is that
they establish their basis of cost and benefits within very narrow
limits. They do not take into account the problems of amenities
WATER AND WATERFRONTS 169
and beauty and so on, and yet these are a fundamental part of the
range of values.
I would like to suggest, Mr. Chairman, that in the new housing
bill now before Congress, a provision be included for demonstration
projects. This has been done in a number of other pieces of legis-
lation where the Congress has made money available for certain
kinds of demonstration projects within a certain field. I would like
to suggest that these demonstration programs be applied, at least in
some instances, for those kinds of situations as, for example, in
waterfronts, whereby all the agencies of the Federal and local gov-
ernments and any other private interest concerned can be coordinated
in a single program.
Most of the language of these demonstration programs, the pro-
visions of the act, are so written as to give a great deal of leeway.
I think with administrative approval and with the provision of funds
by the Congress it will be perfectly possible to have a half dozen or
a dozen demonstration projects throughout the country to indicate
how the waterfront can be developed for utility and beauty as well.
The question was asked this morning by Mr. Davis are the
cities ready? I know of several instances where the cities are ready.
The Austin Town Lake project, 6 miles of waterfront on both sides
in the City of Austin, Tex., is now ready to undertake such a demon-
stration project. I could mention others.
One of the very real difficulties we find in our work at the local
level is the fracturing of programs and the fracturing of the expendi-
ture of funds. If somehow we can find a way of working so that
the Federal programs, as well as the local programs, are coordinated
rather than done piecemeal and in conflict with one another, I think
we can find a very good way of meeting some of our problems.
Mr. WIRTH. I would like to make a comment on this. I have had
a good example.
In certain flood control activities in Florida, the Corps of Engineers
has drained all the fresh water out of the Everglades. So this year
all of the birds left, and they left their nests and young. The Corps
of Engineers gave no consideration whatsoever to the Everglades and
the fact that they needed fresh water along with the salt water. That
is an example of why I recommended that there be a central agency
to review every one of these projects before anything is started.
Here is a State that gave the government 1.5 million acres and $2
million to establish the Everglades National Park, and this year the
170 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
birds had to leave their nests with young in them because they did
not have the habitat. The Corps gave no consideration to the need
for fresh water in the Everglades.
I go back to my recommendation on the panel discussion, that there
should be a central agency to take into consideration all values. I
don't really blame the Corps of Engineers in one way because they
do not know those values and can't possibly get them without going
to some central agency that can check them out. Their project went
through Congress before this problem ever came up. I think that
having a central agency to coordinate all angles before a project is
started is vitally important.
Mr. FEISS. In line with what both Mr. Slay ton and Mr. Wirth
have said, I wonder whether, if the legislation now pending passes,
these new river basin commissions would not be the central focal
point. Presidential appointments of the citizen members of these
commissions provide a point around which these various questions
should revolve. I am not saying the proposal for demonstration
and grants would not be valid at this time, but it seems to me the
question here is one that relates to a totally new program. The leg-
islation would establish a program which would set up a kind of
mechanism that should make it possible for all of the Federal, State,
and local agencies to come to one point for a discussion of the very
kind of problems Mr. Wirth and others this afternoon are talking
about here.
Mr. Chairman, may I cite one little instance of a recent local
demonstration grant, if you want to call it that, without Federal
funds? The city of Rochester, N.Y., with its own funds has just
completed an in-town study of the Genesee River Valley, including
design plans for the river and economic development plans simul-
taneously with engineering water studies involved. As far as I
know, this is the first modern, up-to-date study of an urban river
within the boundaries of a city. There are larger studies of the
Genesee being undertaken by the Genesee River Policy Body, but I
am speaking here of the 18 miles of the length of the river within
the city itself.
DONALD WOOD. Several years ago the Housing and Home Fi-
nance Agency gave us a section 314 demonstration grant to
study the applicability of urban renewal techniques to waterfronts.
Our main report has not been published. However, tomorrow I
am discussing the final text with the people from HHFA. Our
WATER AND WATERFRONTS 171
technical supplement has very recently been published. I would
suggest that, while this study will not give an answer to all the ques-
tions raised here, it might have some value to those of you who are
in urban areas.
I think urban renewal will be of great help in making waterfront
land available in the centers of cities and perhaps it will release pres-
sure on other land.
The second point I will make very quickly is that in our State, in
local and regional planning, we are putting a good deal of emphasis
on prohibition of dumping on shorelines these days and trying to keep
trash out of flood plains.
ROBERT H. EYRE. I am interested in knowing if, in any of the
laws proposed, there is any incentive for existing industry or rail-
roads which adjoin the waterfront to abandon trackage or allow ease-
ments to make the shoreline available.
Is there something in the law that Mr. Wirth and Mrs. Bolton
proposed that does not already exist?
Mr. FEISS. I know of nothing in the proposed legislation that
would cover these particular points. It is very important that they
be added because we do have, just as I mentioned earlier in respect
to the Delaware River Basin, serious blight in what might be called
nonurban areas caused by bad waterfront conditions, abandoned
railroad tracks, and so on. This would be a very useful addition to
the legislation.
FRANK GREGG. Do you want to address yourselves to the differ-
ence between the Senate and House versions of amendments to the
Federal Water Pollution Act which are now pending? You will
recall that the Senate version responds to the President's request for
a broader, stronger Federal program of upgraded water quality stand-
ards. Many of us have some doubts that the House version does,
and I think it would be ironic and most unfortunate if this conference
did not strongly support the President by addressing itself to the
basic issues posed by the two bills.
DAVID BROWER. In San Francisco we are rilling the bay, as you
have heard. Nearby we have wrecked mile after mile of streams in
the process of taking out the redwoods. Where once we had a herit-
age, we now have nothing. Everything is going.
Wilderness was not on the agenda for this conference and we
understand why. However, since wilderness is one of the places
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172 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
where some of our best water comes from, I would like to suggest
that we append as a footnote to the conference the proceedings from
the conference we had in San Francisco six weeks ago. I suggest
this not so much for wilderness as for what that conference says about
the people problem that we have in California now. We found out
in that conference that we would soon cut our last redwoods, fill
our last bay, dam our last great canyon, and lose other such things,
unless man soon decides that it is not essential for him to double his
population every 40 years or every 15 years as we do it in Cali-
fornia. This is one problem that man does not have to assume he
can't do anything about.
I think that possibly this panel might point out in its final recom-
mendations that the President should schedule a White House Con-
ference on Population Control, wherein the talent represented here
could attack this population problem, which seems to underlie all
the other problems we have been talking about.
Statements Submitted for the Record
MILO W. HOISVEEN. Giant reservoirs have been constructed on
the Missouri River in the States of South Dakota, North Dakota,
and Montana. These reservoirs permit the incoming waters to drop
their silt loads. The clear water is repeatedly discharged from the
series of reservoirs for downstream use. It immediately endeavors
to pick up its former silt load by eroding the banks and degrading
the channel. Hundreds of acres of land are stolen by the river from
landowners adjacent to the stream each year through erosion.
Landowners in our democracy have historically defended their
land even if with their life. Protecting land against the river is ex-
pensive; consequently, he uses whatever means are available to him.
He attempts to retard erosion by bulldozing trees over the bank
or installing riprap through the use of old car bodies. Both are
unsightly and contribute ugliness to the many pleasure boat pas-
sengers that frequent the river. While those reaches of the river
below the system of reservoirs which are used for navigation can be
protected without cost to the landowner and the navigator, the land-
owner or a legal entity in these areas where barges are not in
evidence must furnish costly assurances which are difficult to comply
with.
It is suggested that the White House Conference on Natural Beauty
urge that bank stabilization be provided in compliance with naviga-
WATER AND WATERFRONTS 173
tion criteria and assurances so the natural beauty and historical sites
of these areas be retained for present and future generations.
PATRICK HORSBRUGH. Particular attention should be given to
the matter of water and transportation. These indivisible topics
seldom receive the extent and study they warrant. The range
of relevance varies from the inheritance of circumstances past to
inventions of the immediate future.
The problem divides in two distinct parts : ( 1 ) The consequences
arising from outmoded services and the reuse opportunities of har-
borage and railroad acreages. (2) The demands to be expected
from the introduction of new vehicles and systems of movement
and storage, such as hovercraft, dracones and vertical flight.
Each of these systems will inevitably make use of water frontage,
both shallow and deep, and will invade areas previously believed
to be inaccessible. It is essential that the physical and economic
pressure which these new vehicles portend should be explored in
respect to all conditions of water frontage around the coasts, along
the major rivers and around the major lakes. This is essentially a
matter of imaginative coordination of existing data from many
sources. The initiative should still rest with the Department of the
Interior.
DONALD W. INSALL. Why do we waste our waterways? In Lon-
don, England, our streets are so crammed with vehicles that if they
had flat tops, you could walk along them. Yet Father Thames is
empty except for the occasional police boat. Why?
Do you remember the joy of looking at water ( clean water ) of walk-
ing by it and of traveling on it? Can we not use this opportunity?
Water is level and beautiful and pedestrians like level and beau-
tiful walks. Why not more waterside walkways? Waterways are
continuous and have few traffic signals, few obstacles. Why not
more water buses?
The riverside strand and river passenger travel are the most ne-
glected joy of all our cities both in Britain and in the United States.
JOHN P. MOSER. While stream pollution is a serious problem, it
is encouraging to note that in the case of one industry, voluntary
corrective action is reaching a successful outcome. After June 30,
no more "hard" detergents will be manufactured for United States
consumption. Already most of the output of detergent plants is of
174 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
the soft type and foaming on streams from this source will soon be
a thing of the past.
It took ten years of research and development to come up with
product ingredients, such as the new LAS, that will wash efficiently
and yet be broken down rapidly by bacteria after they go down the
drain.
It should be noted that while detergent residues in waste water
can cause foam in concentrations as low as one part per million, they
never have been a health hazard. While this one cause of foam will
disappear, the serious 90 percent of other pollutants still remains.
Because clean water is indispensable for the functioning of the prod-
ucts of the soap and detergent industry, it has a continuing interest
in clean water programs.
This, I believe, is a good demonstration of the social responsibility
of numbers of corporations working voluntarily toward cleaner water
without any expense to the government.
Dr. ROGER REVELLE. I would like to put four ideas briefly on the
table:
First, as to education. In Europe, the river is the heart of the city.
Try to think of Paris without the Seine, Florence without the Arno,
or London without the Thames. In the United States, the river is
usually looked at as a giant sewer, often politely called a drain, and
as a convenient route for high speed highways. We Americans, both
children and adults, need to educate ourselves about the wonder and
beauty of the rivers that flow through our cities.
Second, about riverbanks and "air rights." Most respectable
rivers curve and meander as they wander through the city. If the
highway engineers believed their own statements about using the
shortest and straightest route from point to point, they would seldom
design a freeway along a riverbank. They must really use these
banks, in part because they are nearly level, and in part because they
are public lands and hence land acquisition costs are low. With
modern earth moving machinery, hills are not a serious problem.
With the new ideas about "air rights" for giant buildings over super
highways, the problem of land acquisition costs for these highways
may well disappear, and with it the justification for routing such
highways along riverbanks. On the other hand, exploitation of
existing air rights along riverbanks and lakeshores, for example those
belonging to railroads, must be very carefully controlled, else the
potential beauty and meaning of the river as the heart of the city
WATER AND WATERFRONTS 175
may never be fulfilled. We need to use much more widely and
effectively the concept of the "scenic easement" that Stewart Udall
has invoked along the Potomac.
Third, about stretching the shorelines. Riverbanks and bay shores
near cities, indeed all the shorelines along our seacoasts and lakes,
are one of our most precious assets, for they are almost one dimen-
sional, only a narrow line or strip, rather than a broad area. To
make room for our growing population to enjoy these narrow spaces,
we need to stretch our shorelines by wrinkling them. We can do
this by building bays, bars, islands, and peninsulas along the shores.
The city of Chicago is doing an exciting job of this kind on its Lake
Michigan shoreline, and it is also beginning to take the Chicago River
seriously as a priceless civic asset.
Fourth, the problem of multiple jurisdictions. In San Francisco
Bay, it is almost impossible to develop and carry through a plan for
the optimum human use of the Bay because of the problem of con-
flicting, overlapping, and multiple public jurisdiction. No town,
city, or district has sufficient control to do anything really satisfactory
in restoring and building the beauty of the Bay. Each little juris-
diction is anxious to expand its taxable area by filling in its share of
the Bay front, and to reduce its costs of waste disposal by using the
Bay as a convenient dumping ground.
What is needed is a single San Francisco Bay authority charged
with planning and carrying through development of the Bay as
one of the great human assets of the United States. Here I suggest
the Federal Government could help by using the carrot of Federal
grants and the stick or threat of Federal control to encourage the
establishment of such a unified activity. It is easy to say that San
Francisco Bay is a local California problem, but, in fact, San Fran-
cisco Bay is a priceless asset for all Americans, in some sense the
symbol of our country, and its development must be the concern of
all Americans.
Dr. J. HAROLD SEVERAID. The city of Sacramento and the State
of California have cooperatively developed a redevelopment plan
for Old Sacramento which includes a complete renovation of the
city's waterfront into a beautiful aquatic park. Its published plan
is available from the Sacramento Redevelopment Agency. It may
well serve as one of the demonstration programs Mr. Dworsky called
for. This project will also involve the historical restoration noted
by Mr. Tunnard.
CHAPTER 8
THE DESIGN OF THE HIGHWAY
1:30 p.m., Monday, May 24
The Chairman, Mr. BABCOCK. There are numerous facets in the
design of the highway. It must be planned to care for land develop-
ment and traffic volumes many years in the future. It must be de-
signed to have maximum possible built-in safety features. It must be
located to do the minimum possible damage to private and public
property. It must be fitting and proper in terms of its surrounding
environment. Finally, all of these elements must be put together in a
package that the public is willing to pay for. Providing such a high-
way system for a nation on wheels is a most challenging problem for
all governmental agencies.
Today we are not here to discuss this total problem or the merits
of various forms of transportation but rather, the problem as it relates
to highway design and natural beauty. The matter of highway
design and beauty is obviously relative and there will be many diver-
sified opinions pertaining to it. There is the matter of the design
of the highway itself in terms of its over-all attractiveness. There is
the matter of the effect that the highway will have upon the natural
landscape and existing environment. There is the matter of the
over-all panorama to be seen by the motorist. There is the matter
of superimposing a new urban highway network upon an existing
metropolitan complex to eliminate existing traffic strangulation and
to prevent further economic decay. These and many other matters
must be thoroughly analyzed if we are to design efficient and safe
highways that have built-in attractiveness.
Members of the Panel on The Design of the Highway were Wil-
liam Babcock (Chairman), Colin D. Buchanan, John Clarkeson,
Lawrence Halprin, Boris Pushkarev, John J. Ryan, Francis W. Sar-
gent, and Rex M. Whitton. Staff Associate was James L. Shotwell.
177
178 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
To panelists and participants alike I would caution that we are
not here to waste each other's time in interdisciplinary disputes rela-
tive to past responsibilities for highway design. We are not here to
spend our time outlining mistakes of the past made by engineers, plan-
ners, or others unless examples of these mistakes can show us ways
to do our job better. Rather, we have been called here to develop
specific proposals for the implementation of a positive action pro-
gram. What then is this action program that we are to develop?
It has been stated most adequately and eloquently by the President
in his message to Congress: "I hope that all levels of government,
our planners and builders will remember that highway beautification
is more than a matter of planting trees or setting aside scenic areas.
The roads themselves must reflect, in location and design, increased
respect for the natural and social integrity and unity of the landscape
and communities through which they pass."
Let us, therefore, now move ahead to develop better working re-
lationships between all disciplines and let us develop new planning
and design techniques such that we may positively implement the fine
statement of the President.
Mr. SARGENT. First let me emphasize, as a career conservationist
turned roadbuilder, that I am a most enthusiastic supporter of the
movement for a "Green America." We must acquire broader
rights-of-way to protect our scenic areas; we must remove or screen
junkyards and borrow pits, and plan for the harmonious use of
natural terrain.
I am sure public funds are put to the best use in making motoring
a delight to the eye and satisfying to the soul as we build our inter-
state highways through the open countryside.
But let me ask this is there not something very incongruous in
highway planning that calls for more beauty in the country, and then
creates the very antithesis of the green America concept ugly urban
monsters in our cities?
Instead of highways with wide green median strips, built to seek
out and take advantage of scenic vistas in the open spaces, in our
cities we frequently build highways on steel stilts, sometimes four
tiers of them, so stark and ungainly that millions are offended by
them daily.
None can dispute the statement that some of America's freeways
are hideous. Granted they are utilitarian, and undoubtedy less
THE DESIGN OF THE HIGHWAY 179
expensive than more imaginative and tasteful designs but they still
are disfigurements of the cityscape.
The time has come to give aesthetics an equal vote in the planning
and construction of highways in metropolitan America. It is time
to stop building ugly urban monsters in the name of economy alone.
We must look beyond the dollar. We must look for ways to bring
grace and symmetry to the hearts of our cities.
Granted it will add more, maybe much more, to original con-
struction costs, but the cities of this Nation will be living with these
structures long after the bonds have been amortized.
I ask this conference to look for ways to bring the Green America
concept into the hearts of our Nation's cities, where three-fourths of
the population will live by the year 2000.
Massachusetts, in step with the rest of the Nation, has just
passed the halfway mark in the construction of its interstate high-
way system. Like the rest of the country, our department of public
works is presently confronted with the task of completing this pro-
gram with the construction of final portions in the more densely
populated and developed areas of our State.
Through historic Boston and Cambridge, we are building a cir-
cumferential highway the inner belt that forms a hub from
which radiate the express highways of the region. This is the most
challenging project that has ever confronted our State. We must
preserve the character of this area, which includes stretches of his-
toric parkland, two famous museums, and several of the Nation's
eminent universities.
We are examining all concepts and designs, from tunnels to grace-
ful aerial structures. We must protect what we have and enhance
rather than detract from the pleasant setting of our metropolitan
area. We must develop the best plan. To accomplish this we have
set up a volunteer blue ribbon committee of architects, city planners,
and civic leaders to assist our department. Our aim is to protect
the dignity and grace of this area. We know it will cost more, but
why can't aesthetics have an equal seat at the conference table with
construction costs and road user benefits?
We need the highways in our urban centers to save them from
choking on their own traffic. But let's not settle for less than the
best for what we build today is a legacy to our great-grandchildren.
Let's make our cities more liveable and pleasant.
I am sure you will agree that beauty in our cities should also have
a price tag.
180 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
I urge, therefore, that the Bureau of Public Roads add to its
criteria, benefits and allowances for urban aesthetics in its highway
program. We have put the Interstate Highway Program to work
for America and have seen it fulfill much of its promise but its
fulfillment will be even greater when aesthetics become, in America,
a full-fledged partner with utility.
Mr. RYAN. My colleagues will very ably deal with certain phases
of the design of highways from their respective viewpoints as mem-
bers of a design team. I will discuss the role of the landscape archi-
tect on the design team and outline certain items of landscape work
which should be considered in the design of most highways, be they
rural or urban.
Man has long been aware of the beauty and appearance of the
roads and the regions he travels and literature abounds in references
to his observations on these subjects. That we Americans, probably
the most mobile people in history, should have a deep concern about
the appearances of what we see while traveling is a natural and
desirable thing.
A major objective of the highway design team should be to assure
that the potential for natural beauty in and along the highways
is fully utilized. Beauty in the design of the highway must be
deliberately sought; it seldom comes about by accident. This applies
both to rural and urban highways.
Having accepted this basic premise that beauty must be deliberately
sought, how do we achieve it?
First, we must develop a concept of what we mean by natural
beauty. This concept probably should be a composite one rather
than the opinion of one man. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,
and you are going to have lots of beholders. One essential step in the
development of a concept of natural beauty is that we must recognize
and fully utilize the best of the local scenery, whatever it is, be it
mountains, deserts, farmland, or a city scene.
Second, the highway design team should, in the earliest stage of
preliminary design, make an aesthetic inventory along the pro-
posed route of the highway. This inventory will include all those
natural features within a rather broad strip, which could contribute
to the making of a beautiful highway including possible views and
areas for essential landscaping. The inventory will also have a nega-
tive or nonaesthetic heading under which should be listed those fea-
tures or developments which will detract from the appearance of the
THE DESIGN OF THE HIGHWAY 181
highway and which must be removed, screened, controlled, or re-
stored.
With the results of the aesthetic inventory at hand, the design team
can analyze the potential for beauty for each highway project and
determine the basic aesthetic character of the highway to be built.
These determinations will vary greatly according to the part of the
country and class of highway. Certain broad and perhaps some
detailed design requirements concerning the aesthetic aspects of the
engineering and landscape components for the specific project will
result from the referenced inventory, analysis, and determination.
To implement the broad design requirements, checklists for the
various design features of the highway should be prepared to insure
their consideration at the plan-making level. The engineering check-
list concerned with alignment and grade would be the most impor-
tant and an effective one could be put together by the many talented
design engineers and other members of the design team.
Assuming that the basic landscape character sought has been de-
cided by the design team, the landscape design checklist should con-
tain design features such as :
1. Have we enough right-of-way to produce the aesthetic and land-
scape character determined by the design team?
2. What natural or historical features are to be preserved?
3. Are sites for scenic overlooks and rest areas available?
4. What special grading requirements are necessary?
5. Do we need special specifications for clearing and grubbing
the trees on the right-of-way to minimize damage, for defining work
limits, and for proper control of borrow pits and spoil areas?
6. What grasses do we need on our turf areas for appearance and
to control erosion?
7. What is the appropriate planting needed along the highway?
8. What use should be made of the unused parcels along the high-
way in urban areas?
The above checklist is only a sample and additional items should
be placed on it as required.
The use of section 319 of title 23 U.S.C. enabling the States to
obtain land with 1 00 percent Federal funds for scenic and landscap-
ing purposes can be a terrific help in building and keeping beau-
tiful highways. Make sure your State has enabling legislation to take
advantage of this section which is part of the very backbone of our
program.
182 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
It would also greatly aid in keeping the highways beautiful and
litter-free, now that we have them all built, if each State has a
strong beautification and anti-litter organization modeled along the
lines recommended by Keep America Beautiful.
In conclusion, I would be remiss if I did not tell this distinguished
assembly of the semisecret, nonengineering, but highly effective de-
sign principle we use so successfully in New York to build our
beautiful highways. I quote from a design directive issued by Dep-
uty Chief Engineer B. A. Lefeve. In it he said, "The highway
should fit into the landscape like a deer in the woods, not like a bull
in a china shop."
Mr. CLARKESON. In the development of the location and design
of major highways, two public responsibilities must be discharged.
The obvious one is the development of a roadway for the trans-
portation function, properly meshed with the needs of the area and
with other forms of transportation existing or planned. Little disa-
greement exists today to this planning premise.
Less observed and perhaps less obvious is the social obligation to
maintain or create an environment that people, both the driver and
the pedestrian, can live in. The highway industry is a major opera-
tion on the rural and urban area. The highway effort for the most
part is almost totally lacking in creativeness as part of the living land-
scape.
The interstate system, being constructed on wholly new rights-
of-way without the confines of serving abutting property, can lend
itself admirably to the development of fine examples of rural and
urban scene. Any highway constructed in this program has a qual-
ity of durability; if it is a bad influence on the landscape it is bad
for a long time. If it is good it will be good for a long time. Because
so much of it is enormous an eight-lane highway runs 125 to 200
feet wide and interchanges run up to 50 acres it can overwhelm,
in size alone, any other architectural, planning, or landscaped area
near it.
Since its size is so overwhelming it should and can be planned,
designed, and built to complement rather than destroy all within
sight of it.
The public obligation of the highway industry requires the adop-
tion of three needed principles :
1. That it will not unwittingly destroy any existing architectural,
historic, or other desirable value.
THE DESIGN OF THE HIGHWAY 183
2. That it will complement any existing or proposed future values.
3. That in areas which are presently nondescript or in need of
rehabilitation it will be the seed to induce good adjoining develop-
ment.
Now let's apply these principles
1 . Location. The continued destruction of other public facilities
such as parks, playgrounds and educational institutions is a gross
and unwarranted extension of the highway fund. While the dollar
value of the land taken appears less, it is only because of a lack of
realistic appraisal of the public function destroyed.
In locating the highway, due regard should and can be given to the
views both of countryside and cityscape if care is exercised. Merging
of the highway plan and other redevelopment programs, too often
omitted in the planning, is one way that such locations can aid rather
than hurt the urban scene.
2. Design. One of the difficulties of expressway design is in the
elephantine size of many urban and suburban roads. An 8-, 10-,
or 12-lane highway is a tremendous thing. The designer is some-
times caught between hiding it under the rug or autocratically bull-
dozing a wide swath. Neither need be done.
If the multilane highway is broken down into its component parts,
none need be in excess of four lanes. And if each such four-lane
element is designed as to form and placement, vertically as well as
horizontally, all the necessary traffic functions can be performed
and each integral section can be designed with a fineness often re-
served for good buildings.
In this respect the usual technique is to have an engineering
design gussied up by an architect to cover its too obvious rough shell.
Such wallpapering techniques serve little or no purpose of permanent
environmental value.
The proper procedure is to have the architect involved in all
projects and to have him as a prime member of the team in the
control of line, grade, and general form. Unnecessary and expen-
sive facing techniques can often be avoided and a sculptural form
can be obtained complementary to the area through which the high-
way traverses.
Design by directive is not in the interest of creating a good high-
way. Little things, even as little as the indiscriminate use of massive
doses of chain-link fence, can destroy an otherwise good design.
There are better and cheaper methods of accomplishing the same
thing.
184 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
Highway design is a custom job and should not be obtained from
handbooks as so often is the case.
Do these techniques cost money?
In engineers' or architects' time and thought, yes.
But in the cost of construction they are more apt to save money.
On many rural interstate projects, we have gone to the effort to
avoid scars and fit the highway in with the land contour and have
saved large amounts of money mostly in items such as rock excava-
tion and river relocations.
In the urban scene such economies are not always available but
if the social values which are otherwise destroyed were measured,
here too would the public's ultimate cost be reduced.
Mr. BUCHANAN. As one of the few delegates from overseas to
this conference, perhaps I may be permitted to spend a moment
of my allotted time in expressing my appreciation at having been
invited to this distinguished gathering. I feel more than doubtful
whether, in the absence of detailed knowledge of conditions and
administration in the United States, I can really contribute any-
thing to the solution of problems as they are arising here. But I can
say that very much the same problems are arising in Britain, with
perhaps the difference that the same forces are arrayed against an
environment which tends, in both urban and rural areas, to be small
scale, intimate and delicate in character, and therefore all the more
susceptible to irretrievable damage.
This panel is concerned with 'The design of the highway.' I do
not interpret this as meaning solely the design of expressways or free-
ways but the design of all surfaces that carry motor vehicles. This
presents one problem in open or rural areas, but an altogether dif-
ferent and much more formidable problem in urban areas. Here
the conflict is not between natural beauty and a manmade utility
in the form of a highway, but between the circulation of vehicles
on the one hand and the safety, convenience and general welfare
of the people who occupy the area on the other. Unless highways
are properly related to the development of the town they serve, then
there is the risk that the beauty will be no more than skindeep.
The essence of the relationship between highways and develop-
ment is to secure a highway system which permits the efficient cir-
culation of vehicles to destinations without in the process wrecking
the environment by the widespread danger, noise, fumes, and vibra-
tion of motor vehicles and their universal intrusion into the visual
THE DESIGN OF THE HIGHWAY 185
scene. This is not a matter of planning and beautifying a few major
highways; it is a matter of paying over- all attention to urban areas
to insure that wherever vehicles penetrate, in back streets as much
as in main streets, they do not ruin the surroundings for people.
I think there is only one principle whereby progress can be made.
This is gradually to create, inside towns and cities, subareas where
considerations of environment are paramount and take precedence
over the movement or parking of vehicles. These might be termed
"urban rooms." It is here that people will live and work and have
their being, and their environmental needs may well limit the
amount of traffic to be admitted. The concomitant of urban rooms
is to have a corridor system (or highway network) onto which longer
movements of vehicles from locality to locality are concentrated,
leaving the urban rooms to deal only with their own traffic.
The network as I have described it is essentially a facility for
movement. Nevertheless it can be a well-designed utility. There
are several aspects to this. It should be good to look at for those
people in whose field of view it falls. This includes people who have
to live with it in the sense that their dwellings or offices overlook it;
and the people who use it when driving or riding in vehicles, whose
requirements may be quite different. It should be so sited that it
does not carve up areas that by any rights should be homogenous
units. It should not be so out of scale with the surroundings that it
destroys all sense of urban cohesion. The need to keep it in scale
may even be a crucial limiting factor on the amount of traffic that
can be handled.
Within the areas which I have described as urban rooms there
will be much traffic circulating. Once again, it is only part of the
problem to have beautiful circulation routes. The basic question
is to see how people can live at close quarters with the motor vehicle.
To this end it seems essential to work toward a code of environ-
mental standards. I see this as merely another step in the long
struggle to upgrade the quality of urban surroundings, in which
process the definition of standards has played a major role. Over-
crowding in dwellings, bad sanitation, lack of ventilation, dampness,
lack of daylight and sunlight, insufficient play spaces for children
all these are matters where steady social progress has followed the
setting up of standards. I submit that we now need to follow in
the same tradition by defining the standards of danger, anxiety,
noise, fumes, vibration, and visual intrusion that are to be regarded
186 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
as acceptable in relation to motor traffic in our civilized urban areas.
It is a difficult field with a large subjective element in which little
serious research work has been carried out, but I think it is funda-
mental to dealing with traffic in cities.
I think the beautification of highways must be seen as part of this
comprehensive process, which, of course, is no less than city planning
itself.
If this process be based on the principle that buildings, access
ways, and all the material stuff of cities are there for us to mold
deliberately for our own convenience and delight, then there is hope
that we shall make progress with what is now coming into view, all
over the world, as the major social problem for the rest of this cen-
tury ; namely, the form and organization of cities.
Mr. HALPRIN. First I would like to define the parameters for my
discussion. I would like to confine my remarks to the design of
freeways within dense urban cores, understanding as I do that
there are areas out in the countryside for which handsome freeways
also must be designed.
Some years ago I was asked by the State Division of Highways in
California to work as a consultant on urban freeways. Their inten-
tion was, I believe, that I would evolve some technique by which the
planting of massed trees and shrubs would screen out the ugly
structures and make them beautiful possibly evolve a technique of
parkway design which would make freeways more palatable in a
city.
As I began to look into the problem, however, I began to realize
in a very clear way that the urban freeway was in fact a new breed
of cat and that it had to be designed as such. The more I thought
about it the more I realized that most of the principles which had
been evolved for freeways in the country were completely wrong
in the city.
The city freeway had to deal with the city. The important point
was to make the freeway a part of the city to evolve a new urban
form of traffic architecture whose ultimate aim was to improve the
city, not just move traffic about.
Handsome freeways can readily be designed for new cities or for
new sections of older cities as parkways whose characteristics are
similar to freeways in the country with wide rights-of-way, widely
separated roadbeds and heavily screened verges.
THE DESIGN OF THE HIGHWAY 187
However, freeway design must find other solutions when in-
serted into older sections of densely built up, valuable urban cores
where land values are high, where existing architectural and urban
values are important to preserve, and where residential and com-
mercial areas will be disrupted.
Here are a few of the major points which I consider important
in the design of urban freeways.
1. The sinuous, curvilinear pattern of country freeways is inappro-
priate in the city. It cuts across the existing grid, disrupts neigh-
borhood patterns and leaves odd, difficult-to-integrate pieces. Urban
freeways should follow the grid of the city.
2. The wide right-of-way, with variable median strips and planted
verges and shoulders, is inappropriate in cities because it wreaks
havoc with existing structures, takes too much land off the tax rolls
and separates neighborhoods by great swaths cut through a city's
fabric.
3. Urban freeways should fit into existing and projected land-use
and topographic patterns in a city. They should go between neigh-
borhoods, not through them, or they should go between two different
land uses, such as industrial and residential, or utilize topographic
changes by sliding along below hills where they cannot be seen.
4. Urban freeways should be condensed and concentrated, not
spread out. They should employ urban, not country aesthetics. Ac-
cordingly, they must use multilevel, split-level, depressed, and ele-
vated groupings to facilitate concentration of the road bed. As
a byproduct, connections across freeways, from one side to the other,
become much easier to achieve.
The objection to elevated freeways is, in large measure, I have
observed, due to the environment under them, which is usually ugly
and unpleasant, devoted to parking lots, bus storage and cyclone
fences, and is not the elevated structure itself. The largest single
problem in condensation is interchanges, some of which may have
to go underground or be designed as parks.
5. Urban freeways should be integrated with the city and not
simply be a corridor through it. They should pass through buildings,
have shops built with them and other structures such as restaurants
and parking garages, integrated into their structure.
6. Freeways should be built as part of a total community develop-
ment, not unilaterally. If a freeway must pass through a city, its
design and construction must involve the total environmental rede-
velopment of the area through which it passes. To this end many
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188 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
levels of government as well as private enterprise must join forces
to effect complete redevelopment. This should involve building
on the air rights over freeways as well as the rebuilding of areas
around them. Freeways can then take the lead in generating amenity
in a city in the new or rebuilt areas by having parks and playgrounds
pass under them, new structures built over them. Ultimately it is
the design of the environment of a freeway which counts for more
than the actual structure itself.
7. Freeways must be developed as only a part of a total trans-
portation program in which mass transit and other techniques for
limiting further car traffic must be established, including the very
real possibility that no more freeways should be designed.
Mr. PUSHKAREV. Over 60 percent of the interstate system is now
completed or under construction. Thus, unless we want to write
off the appearance of the bulk of our freeways, some retroactive
measures must be considered. Aside from a major expansion of
billboard control to attack the real eyesores in urbanized and com-
mercial areas, and aside from expanding the principle of limited
access to suburban local arterials, both of which are covered by
different panels, a commitment to rectify some past omissions would
mean:
1. Additional right-of-way acquisition, particularly in growing
suburban and resort areas, to guarantee, wherever development per-
mits, a 150-foot minimum buffer zone between the edge of shoulder
and the taking line.
2. Correction of awkward grading through generous rounding
and warping of slopes, flatter embankments, and a substitution,
wherever median width and climate permit, of planted earth berms
and similar devices for metal barriers.
3. Encouragement of native vegetation on the roadside and more
generous artificial landscaping of prominent areas, particularly near
urban interchanges. This would utilize upward slopes or down-
slopes protected by guardrails, to bring tree growth closer to the road
and break the monotony of the wide swath.
On freeways whose location and geometric design are not yet
finalized more fundamental improvements are possible via essen-
tially three avenues of approach. The first is a vigorous infusion
of aesthetic considerations into design standards for alignment and
profile. This would include, on rural and suburban freeways, the
use of longer vertical curves, the encouragement of spiral transitions,
THE DESIGN OF THE HIGHWAY 189
the discouragement of tangent alignment and the favoring of long
arcs with radii in the 5,000- to 30,000-foot range in open terrain.
I wish to stress that a variable median and independent roadways
do not in and of themselves produce beauty, if the alignment is dis-
continuous. The principles of smooth, continuous alignment are
by no means novel, and historically the Bureau of Public Roads and
some progressive States, such as the State of New York, have used
them for many years. The question now before us is how to encour-
age the other States to adopt the best standards.
The second avenue of approach is a basic policy decision on, as
President Johnson put it, "increased respect for the communities
through which [the highways] pass."
This means not just avoiding aesthetic and valuable urban areas
but also more greenery, wider buffers, more respect for street geom-
etry, for topography and urban views. Most important, in high
density residential and downtown areas the highway must be sub-
ordinated to the dominant pedestrian spaces. This rules out elevated
or at-grade facilities through these downtown areas and their parks.
A depressed lower Manhattan expressway or a depressed Delaware
expressway in Philadelphia may cost up to 50 percent more than
their above-grade counterparts. But cost-benefit ratio of urban
facilities is usually so favorable that even an increase of this magni-
tude will not throw it out of reason. Progressing beyond that, in
our thinking about the second generation of freeways, we should
perhaps start thinking of the removal of some existing elevated
structures such as the Embarcadero Freeway in San Francisco and
the West Side Highway in New York.
Finally, the third avenue of approach has to do with design pro-
cedures. There are today engineering consultant firms which in-
clude landscape architects, architects and other visually trained
professionals on their team, and who have achieved a high
level of expertise in refined geometric design and location. These
teams should be allowed to specialize in the initial, visually decisive
stage of location and geometric layout, while the extremely time con-
suming, but aesthetically not too relevant phase of preparing working
drawings, developing drainage details and computing quantities
should be left to firms proficient in these supporting tasks. This is
similar to Minoru Yamasaki designing the World Trade Center and
Emery Roth & Sons doing the working drawings and is a way to
maximize the utilization of scarce talent.
190 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
Mr. WHITTON. I am happy that the highway is now being rec-
ognized as a possible potential for a more beautiful America. I
think that is eminently justified because more people are going
to see America through the windows of the highway than any
other way. It behooves us to do all we can to make America beauti-
ful from the highway.
Now, of course, I must warn you that there is a difference of
opinion among us as to what is a beautiful highway. We have
changed our ideas through the years and we have developed differ-
ences of opinion and I am talking personally now. When you are
in this work as long as I have been, you do change your mind, re-
gardless of what people in the highway departments think.
Highways are for people and I am reiterating what Mr. Bu-
chanan said for people who ride on them, and for people who live
by them. We must keep this in mind as we design and locate them.
The highways must be beautiful as seen from the driver's seat and
the backseat driver, and they also must not be a scourge on the
community through which they pass.
Highways can be attractive. I am convinced of that, in either
the rural or urban areas. They can be attractive by their location,
as some of my cohorts have said, by the proper selection of the routes
and by the proper selection of the areas through which they pass.
They can be beautiful by the design of the highway itself, by how it is
fitted into the landscape and how the roadway is graded. They can
also be enhanced by plantings along the roadway. All three of these
items contribute to making a more beautiful highway.
Highways should serve the local people and meet the local desires
as well as the needs of through traffic. We must keep this in mind,
too, as we locate and design highways.
Each city and each rural section is an individual problem within
itself. It should be approached in that way. Certainly we should
work together, and by "we," I mean the local government, the State
government and the Federal Government. All these groups should
work together in determining what is best for each individual city,
and each individual city should take a tremendous interest in what
is being done about its highway transportation. Highway transpor-
tation is a part of the total transportation and total transportation is
a part of the urban planning of the city.
So I would urge, as many of my cohorts have said before, that we
utilize each skill that is available in the city and import some if
necessary the skills of architects, landscape architects, highway en-
THE DESIGN OF THE HIGHWAY 191
gineers, and psychologists and all the others. We should bring
these together to form the best possible transportation system and the
best possible urban plan for our cities in the future because, as
someone else said, we are building for a long time in the future. We
ought to build well so that we would like to live there.
Questions and Discussion
Mr. WHITTON. I want to ask Mr. Sargent if he would suggest
how the rural highways can be designed so that they appear to be
part of the area and not just something added to the area.
Mr. SARGENT. Actually my statement referred more to urban
highways. I feel this is the biggest part of the problem. I feel that
the interstate highways through the countryside are being designed
better every single one. I think we are taking into consideration
the harmonious use of the natural terrain. I think that we are be-
coming more sophisticated in terms of acquiring more lands and
providing scenic easements and doing things of this nature.
I personally feel that the matter of planting trees and planting
exotic bushes and flowers and so on, perhaps should be de-
emphasized. I think it is more important to use the natural growth,
to use the trees that are in the region, to use clumps of trees in the
median strips along the road than to try to introduce other species.
It seems to me that this is more natural and I think it fits into the
landscape better.
Mr. HALPRIN. I would like to have the benefit of Professor Bu-
chanan's experience. I do not know how many of you have read
his book. It is called Traffic in Towns. I recommend it to those
of you who have not read it. I wonder if he could give us any indica-
tion of what he thinks, on a critical level either good or bad critical
in the real sense of the word about what we have been doing. Is it
either good, bad or how can it be improved?
I know this is a big order.
Mr. BUCHANAN. I was rather anxious to get home in one piece.
I did not think I was going to get put on the spot like this, to give
a critical appraisal of things.
I do not quite know what to say. But if I could venture a sum-
mary I think I would put it like this: As far as rural freeways are
concerned, I would think that you have just about brought this now
192 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
literally to a fine art. Certainly some of the latest work I think is
just as good as one could hope for anywhere.
On the urban freeways, this is a much more difficult problem.
As I have seen it, you have done some very good work at the same
time, you won't mind my saying so, terrible things have happened.
You seem to be in the position of having pulled yourself to a halt
just to take stock of the situation, and this seems to be a wise thing
to do.
I think the really important thing is the integration of the urban
highway with the land use and city pattern. This is the crux of the
problem.
But to me, this question of freeways and movement of traffic on
freeways is only part of the problem. You could call it the primary
problem, but I think there is an extremely important secondary prob-
lem. This is how you deal with the motor vehicle in its intimate cir-
culation around buildings how you arrange for its parking, how you
deal with all the paraphernalia that the motor vehicles need how
you assure that the people in the back streets do not suffer from it.
This, I think, is a very, very difficult problem and one that seems
to be arising more in American cities. If I can be quite blunt, if you
look at American cities over-all and you add up the total amount of
excruciating ugliness associated directly or indirectly with the motor
vehicle, then I think it is staggering. If you are going to have beau-
tiful American cities, you've got an enormous job on your hands in
that direction alone.
Mr. BABCOCK. I would like to direct one short question to Mr.
Pushkarev relative to expanding a little bit about his ideas on how
you are going to use landscaping to break the monotony of these wide
open swaths you refer to.
Mr. PUSHKAREV. The question here is the charm of the old small
country roads that when one drives over them one is in the land-
scape. The trees come right up to the edge of the pavement and
you are enveloped by trees and by the landscape, whereas on our
freeways, for safety reasons, we have to set the trees back so that
cars out of control do not hit them. As a result, on each side of
the pavement we have a minimum of 30 or up to 80 feet which are
denuded of all vegetation for the purpose of safety.
The design issue here is to select those spots where trees can be
brought as close to the pavement as possible and still not conflict
with the safety criteria. Two such plausible spots are upward slopes
THE DESIGN OF THE HIGHWAY 193
where the car would hit the slope first and the tree later. There we
can bring the trees closer in and we could do the same on the down-
ward sides which are protected by guardrails. Thus vegetation can
be moved virtually up to the edge of the shoulder and give us a
passage through the trees rather than through an open desert.
Mr. SARGENT. I would like to ask Mr. Ryan a question. You
and I were talking last night about parkways and the fact that many
of the parkways built over the years, and sections of our interstate
system, have been constructed with your curvilinear alignment. I
wonder if you feel that this principle could be used on many or per-
haps even all of our highways, and do you think of examples of this
being used well that may be useful to discuss?
Mr. RYAN. Now that we have the example of what you can do
with curvilinear alignment, I cannot understand the resistance to
using it on a much larger scale. Probably I am getting into deep
water, but if it is successful on one section of the interstate in any
one State, it should be successful everywhere. I would think that
the use of it on the interstate and primary and even on the secondary
highways is a basic decision to be made by the chief highway ad-
ministrator and I suppose this decision would have to be made in
light of why we are here. It would logically have to be made by
the chief administrator and in the full knowledge of the great inter-
est in the appearance of our highways.
Mr. BUCHANAN. I was very interested in the suggestion Mr.
Halprin made about integrating urban freeways with the structure
of the city. He said they should not be just a corridor through it. He
went on to say that they should pass through buildings, have shops
built into them on the structures, such as restaurants, parking
garages, and the like. This opens up the very intriguing idea that
you could sit in restaurants, watch the cars swooshing past from the
other side of a glass wall. This is indeed a very intriguing idea and
obviously a way of saving space. But, Mr. Halprin, would this not
pose very formidable problems with real estate people, developers,
property owners? How can we do this unless they really revolution-
ize their attitudes?
Mr. HALPRIN. First, I think there are two questions there. One
is : Is it a good idea to do, and second of all, could it be accomplished?
I don't know how many of you have seen some of the things
that I am thinking of, which have in fact been done on a rather
194 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
limited basis. Some of the new highways in Tokyo, for example,
are very difficult to see. One section of the highway is really quite
difficult to see because for three stories under this highway there
are shops and restaurants. When I went to Tokyo for the Olympic
Games a few months ago, I found that it was hard to realize
that there was a highway there. It was encased. Certain sec-
tions above it were open to the sky. So there was a kind of
integration of all these amenities of the city along with the highway.
In this particular case it was accomplished by private interests who
asked the freeway department to allow them to design and build
shops and restaurants under the freeway as the department de-
signed and constructed the freeway.
It was private initiative in a sense on a redevelopment basis com-
bined with government. There are other examples of this kind of
thing, too. I submit to your interest the United Nations Building
which had in fact a freeway or highway, if you wish to call it that,
which was built at the same time that the new United Nations Build-
ing was built. This is an integrated conception with the great plaza
and everything also over the freeway. Because of the use of the topog-
raphy, the freeway was opened out to the East River and as you
drive along you get the wonderful qualities of the East River. This
has been a great amenity for the city and is precisely the kind of thing
I am speaking of.
Mr. SARGENT. It seems to me that since we have this intense com-
petition for available land in cities we have got to look more and
more to constructing buildings over our highways. I don't see that
this need be unattractive. I think it can be done well. In the city
of Fall River they are going to build the city hall over the interstate
route. I think it is going to be a very attractive structure that will
complement the design and really be an asset, rather than a disfigure-
ment to the location. It seems to me that we may and probably
eventually will get into constructing buildings, perhaps high-rise
housing over, around, and through these highways. It seems to me
that this has to be looked at realistically and I can't see why it can't
be done in an attractive and ingenious fashion.
Mr. RYAN. I have a question for Mr. Halprin. You mentioned
that you should base the design of the freeway within the hard core
of the city upon the absorptive capacity for the automobiles. This
can vary from just parking maybe 150 cars on the ground to a ten-
THE DESIGN OF THE HIGHWAY 195
story pigeonhole parking. It seems to me it varies so much you
couldn't possibly consider it as a basis for any design at all.
Mr. HALPRIN. Quite the reverse; I don't agree. It seems to me
that you have to understand that the city comes first. That is to say,
the people in the city come first. It is my view that it is very
much like this auditorium. In order to keep some configuration in
this auditorium, not overloading the air conditioning and seating, we
have a certain number of seats in this auditorium which people can
occupy. If you get too many it would become an untenable situa-
tion and nobody could breathe well even though you are not allowed
to smoke here. You can apply the same kind of criteria as this
to a building whose capacity is limited, and also to elevators which are
in fact doing what freeways ought to do in cities, that is moving a
certain number of people through them. You can determine the
absorptive capacity of the city in terms of what the city should be
doing for its citizens in terms of the environment. That is what Mr.
Buchanan was talking about. The capacity is limited and you can-
not take any more cars. That is that. You can design it in a
way that it will just absorb so many cars. At that point you ought
to quit; no more freeways.
Mr. RYAN. In the city of New York they built the Pan American
Building. If you were to give the occupants of this building space to
park their cars, you would have to tear down everything else in the
neighborhood, or build parking garages 25 stories high.
Mr. HALPRIN. My answer to that is you should not then have
built the Pan American Building. And I think cities have to accept,
too, that they are organisms just as any other organism. Just as any
organism cannot proliferate endlessly, cities cannot.
Mr. SARGENT. I wouldn't be surprised if someone proposes con-
sideration of birth control. Is this an appropriate subject for us to
discuss?
Mr. BABCOCK. I don't know what the laws are in the District of
Columbia.
Mr. WHITTON. Perhaps much to the surprise of a lot of the audi-
ence, the Bureau of Public Roads has been resisting for some time
the building of extrawide expressways through urban areas and
through rural areas. So I was quite interested in what Mr.
Clarkeson had to say, that a highway or expressway shouldn't be
196 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
over four lanes wide and I would like to have you explain that some-
what further.
Mr. CLARKESON. Mr. Whitton, this is a proposed 12-lane traffic
facility.* Four main lanes are in one direction. Four lanes can
be treated architecturally without imposing it on people or the city.
In this case it is an average of 48 feet in the air, so it lets light and
air in. Four lanes of the main highway below grade go in the other
direction. No traffic headlight glare and no head-on collisions, for
vertical distances are too great for that.
The other four lanes are distributor services to ramps. No one
part of it is so big as to restrict the interneighborhood types of city
activities.
Now in the case of protecting a recreational area, we could not
apply this technique of reducing these things to small elements.
These are our proposals for going through a park, an existing histori-
cal park. They have not been adopted yet. We have put all eight
lanes below ground to permit us to reconstruct the park in its present
area and its present elevation. This happens to be the Fens in Boston
which is flanked by several museums, many schools, and many
pedestrian activities. We have maintained the pedestrian flow,
which is the basic benefit of breaking the 12 lanes into its integral
4-lane parts. It can be done nicely.
EDWARD McMAHON. I w.ould like to move from the urban to the
rural area where interstate roads are also being built and where a
problem exists with which I am familiar. That is the removal of
existing facilities completely, taking utilities completely off the right-
of-way. Has any thought been given, instead of paying to eliminate
the evil, to incorporating it into the over-all planning of the highway
right-of-way? By that I mean providing a corridor for underground
communication and power circuits, even though admittedly, at the
present time, the technology will not allow full utilization at the
electrical level. If this has not been considered, I would suggest that
this conference make this one of its recommendations.
Mr. SARGENT. Who is going to pay for it?
HAROLD GILLIAM. I woud like to get the reaction of the panel to
a couple of possible legislative changes which I think embody some
*Mr. Glarkeson displayed at this point drawings of a highway section.
THE DESIGN OF THE HIGHWAY 197
of the propositions and proposals that have been made by the people
on the panel.
First, that Federal interstate highway money should not be used
for highways or freeways through parks. I have in mind here pri-
marily the Redwood Parks of California where we have had a great
controversy, but this could apply to other parks as well.
The second proposal for a legislative change is based on the re-
marks of Mr. Halprin about the fact that rural highway standards
are not necessarily suitable for urban areas. The present Interstate
Highway Act has certain engineering standards which are appropri-
ate in the rural areas and may not be appropriate in cities.
For example, I have in mind the 60-mile-an-hour or 65-mile-an-
hour requirement. Highways are cutting a great swath through
very densely populated cities, and we have had particular problems
with this in San Francisco. Maybe 200 feet wide, they could
do irreparable damage to the whole fabric of a city no matter how
well the freeway itself is designed.
Would it be possible to relax the rigid standards in the Interstate
Highway Act to provide for traffic moving more slowly through
cities? You could move at speeds between 30 and 40 miles an hour.
I understand that you can move as much traffic at this speed as you
can at 60 or 65. Could you provide for slower traffic in cities with
the possibility of using existing street rights-of-way and building the
freeways beneath the streets for 30- or 35-mile-an-hour traffic?
These are two legislative suggestions. I would like comments
on these, particularly from Mr. Whitton.
Mr. WHITTON. Well, he speaks of a law requiring a speed. I am
not too well versed in the law, but I am not sure that the law requires
a minimum speed of 65 miles an hour. I think it is probably a stand-
ard that has been adopted by the State highway departments. I am
sure that in some urban areas, they are not designing for 65 miles an
hour.
If the conditions were such that it seemed appropriate to build as
you suggest, I am sure that it can be done.
Mr. HALPRIN. I know at one point I suggested to the State High-
way Division in California that this law should be relaxed, or this
requirement should be relaxed for the same reason Mr. Gilliam is
suggesting, so we could reduce the design speeds in the city. I was
told that that was impossible.
198 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
Mr. BABCOCK. I might come in here speaking as a highway ad-
ministrator. I think if you find you put a speed of 35 miles per
hour into what you referred to as a highway design, something
you referred to as a freeway, you would find you would have an
untenable situation with the public. You can relax speeds some-
what and we have some examples. But when you start talking
of going down to 35 and 30 miles an hour, you come almost into a
hopeless situation of compounding reverse curves and so on.
Frankly, the public demands more than that, particularly in the
larger cities where they measure their ability to get in and out of town
in terms of time.
A DELEGATE. I would like to know what measures have been
taken to implement the recommendations to spare the natural vege-
tation along the highways or to reconstruct original landscape. In
some countries they are already trying to follow it up and I am espe-
cially interested to know what has been done in the United States.
Perhaps Mr. Sargent could answer the question because he was re-
ferring to exotic vegetation.
Mr. SARGENT. If I correctly understand the question, I personally
feel that we are doing, particularly in our interstate system in the
United States, a very good job in terms of landscaping, preserving the
trees where we can feature them as part of the landscape as the high-
way goes through. I don't think we actually plant a tree every time
we cut a tree down, and personally, I don't think that is necessary.
Perhaps Mr. Whitton would want to comment on that.
Mr. WHITTON. Mr. Sargent has answered the question quite
ably. I think that when we build a highway, regardless of what it is,
interstate, primary, or secondary, I think we should save all the
trees that we can save safely. The growth that is desirable to save
should be saved. Of course, we have to keep in mind that trees
up too close to the traveled way sometimes result in fatal accidents
and we have to be careful about that. There is another method of
developing suitable growth along the highway and that is by selec-
tive mowing under maintenance operations. Your local mainte-
nance man has a knowledge of what will grow into a nice looking
tree by the appearance of the sapling, and he can let it grow and
thus obtain a very fine appearance and fine growing type of vege-
tation vegetation that does not require pruning or cultivating
THE DESIGN OF THE HIGHWAY 199
or watering or spraying. That is a very desirable feature to the high-
way department which is responsible for the maintenance.
A DELEGATE. I would like to ask Mr. Whitton a question. Those
of us who have been involved in the highway conservation and
design business in the last two years have been very powerfully struck
by one point that Mr. Pushkarev, who is a distinguished author,
raised in Man-Made America. That was in reviewing the trans-
actions of the Highway Research Board of the last 20 or 22 years,
he found that he can correct me if I am wrong something like
3 out of 900 articles dealt substantively with highway aesthetics. In
doing our own research in California we found examples of out-
standing design in other States. We even found some work that
Mr. Glarkeson did in New Hampshire several years ago.
What can we foresee in the Bureau of Public Roads in terms of
research and development I mean in a R. & D. unit, rather than
in pavement loading and so forth? Can we see an enhanced effort
to carry forth the visual analysis that both Mr. Pushkarev and Mr.
Halprin have done elsewhere?
Mr. WHITTON. You mean in regard to roadside plantings?
A DELEGATE. I would like to see a little more fundamental ap-
proach than that. We have a lot of cosmetic treatment in California
and it hasn't made a difference.
Mr. WHITTON. I take it you mean in regard to location and
design of the cross section.
Well, I think that since I have been in this business a good long
time, I will say it again, you have seen a big improvement in road
location and in road design during the past ten years, let's say.
I can recall when we established a road location by measuring
half-way between the fences along the road and that was our fore-
sight. But now, we establish road locations by aerial photography
and a very careful laying out and examination of the total topog-
raphy through the area, both from the air and from the ground.
As Mr. John Ryan has said, they even make checklists of things they
have in the area and things that they would like to save.
Then, again, on the roadside design, I think you have seen, and
I suggest if you haven't that you drive from here to Fredericksburg,
Va. or to Frederick, Md., and you will see, at least in my judgment,
as fine a highway design as you will see in the country. It is inde-
pendent design, both vertical and horizontal. I personally think
200 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
it is the fundamental basis of a beautiful highway, the way it is
located and the way it is designed. I think we are developing that
and I think we will develop it further in the future and I think more
States will become involved in it.
I have to say, Mr. Ryan, in reply to one statement you made, if
you are in a flat country like the boot heel of southeast Missouri, I
would hate to try to live there if I were on a curvilinear alignment
and develop artificial hills and hollows in that particular area where
they make quite a bit of money growing cotton.
Mr. HALPRIN. I just want to say in this regard, that we keep on
coming back to the road alignment out in the country. As Professor
Buchanan pointed out, we pretty much know how to do it, it is now
a matter of doing it. Where the R. & D. he is talking about is needed
is in cities. We have to understand that we are involved in a
new urban form that is changing the face of our cities. Architec-
ture and planning and urban design and freeway movement all have
to be integrated into some complex series of things that you might
call traffic architecture. Nobody, to my knowledge, except a few
forward thinking people in mixed fields has been thinking about
this. I urge you, as I think Bill has been trying to do, to think about
doing research which would look toward a new kind of traffic
architecture which involved urban design in cities.
Mrs. JOHN WAINWRIGHT. This has been exceedingly stimulating
for those of us in government to hear because the discussion has
primarily been around design. Unfortunately, in Bade County,
Florida, we now have to live with some design that hasn't proven
to be very satisfactory. We therefore now have to apply the cosmetic
approach to that portion of the interstate highway that has been
constructed. This is not the fault of Mr. Whitton ; it is unfortunately
the fault of agencies such as those in the State of Florida. We are
at the point where the Federal funds are available. On behalf of
my city I would like to make some suggestions for the consideration
of the panel and the Bureau of Public Roads.
First of all, we have currently been working on the beautification
of that portion of the expressway already constructed. Fortunately,
the city of Miami has a landscape architect that we could lend to
the State of Florida to do design; otherwise, there is no profession-
ally trained person to deal with this problem. We, therefore, urge
that, for landscape design purposes, the work be done by profes-
sionally trained landscape architects, particularly those that are
THE DESIGN OF THE HIGHWAY 201
familiar with the geographical problems of the area and native plant
life.
Secondly, and we strongly recommend this second suggestion,
plans for landscape beautification should not be part of the prime
contract, but be an individual, separate contract. Because I am
afraid otherwise, if you let it out as part of the general construction
contract, the beautification is going to get the short end of the horn.
So, I hope very much, Mr. Whitton, that the Board will take these
suggestions under consideration. Possibly the panel would com-
ment.
Mr. BABCOCK. He agrees with everything you say.
CHARLES CALLISON. There are two questions to the panel. The
first one that Mr. Gilliam asked, was forgotten about.
The second was commented on. I should like to restate the first
question or call it again to the attention of the panel and ask for
comment, particularly, I think from Mr. Whitton and from the
gentlemen on the panel who are State highway department admin-
istrators or officials.
The question is: Should it not be considered wise, perhaps, to
have legislative recognition of the concept that certain areas should
not be considered potential rights-of-way for freeways, or other
major highways?
Mr. Gilliam spoke of the Redwood State Park in California. I
know another such area which is an irreplaceable and extremely
important national wildlife refuge in the State of Alabama. This
is presently threatened by a plan to build an interstate highway
through the middle of it.
Mr. BABCOCK. Thank you. I don't know whether the group here
can comment on that.
Mr. HALPRIN. It may be easier for me. I wholeheartedly, sir,
support your attitude and would be very happy to vote for it.
Mrs. HANS KLUSSMANN. We have an urgent problem in San
Francisco. That is the freeway they are trying to build there. One
gentleman here, not from San Francisco, mentioned that the Em-
barcadero Freeway would be torn down. He said it should be torn
down and if you would take a vote in San Francisco today, you would
find a unanimous popular vote to tear the thing down. That was
constructed about ten years ago. This new freeway is going to
202 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
extend that thing around the northern waterfront. They are going
to slash an eight-lane freeway through a potentially beautiful part of
San Francisco on our waterfront.
Everyone says that he is opposed to it. Tell us how and this
is directed to Mr. Whitton how can we reach you and the peo-
ple in Washington, because we understand that it is Federal money
that is involved here? They are going to put this freeway through
and all we have against you is a little board of supervisors. It is
pretty hard sometimes to convince them what they are going to do
is going to be very wrong.
A DELEGATE. Mr. Halprin, Mr. Whitton, and all the rest of you
are wonderful highway landscape specialists. It is a marvelous
opportunity to have your guidance, support, and help.
We are fortunate to have these great freeways. Don't forget to
give us some fine landscaping whereby the eyes will not be so weary.
When driving over a long, long distance, the great highway-freeway
runs together. There must be some fine way of architecture and
landscaping whereby that will not happen.
GLESTER HINDS. In connection with integrated, interstate high-
ways, is there a possibility to have uniform, meaningful standardizing
of traffic signals throughout the Nation?
Mr. BABGOCK. Yes, a standard control will be in effect in 1968.
JACK B. ROBERTSON. I want to pick up a thought brought up by
Mr. Ryan, and my question is directed to Mr. Whitton.
I understand you are having some problems in getting States to
accept section 319 funds, funds to protect natural beauty, rest areas,
and so forth. What are you doing to induce the States to use these
funds?
Mr. WHITTON. We have written a letter to them and we will be
talking to them to induce them to use these funds. I think we haven't
pressed too hard in the past because frankly we were interested in
getting some roads built so that people could see what they were
like. Now that we have some built, I think we are in a better posi-
tion to insist on the States using some of the money the 319
money for acquisition of additional rights-of-way to protect scenic
beauty.
ALLAN TEMKO. To say a word of criticism, the technology you are
talking about is obsolete. You had no one here from General Electric,
THE DESIGN OF THE HIGHWAY 203
General Motors, any of the big corporations. You are assuming that
the internal combustion engine is here to stay, that the kind of vehicles
we are using today are here permanently. What you should do is
recommend strongly and Mr. Whitton, I think your department
should take the lead in this and I think this is what Mr. Lipman
was talking about you should develop a complete technology of
movement in this country, as ambitiously conceived as the space
program, and shed our obsolete technology as rapidly as possible.
We shouldn't talk as if these rights-of-way are so important because
they are predicated upon a single system of movement. You are
not talking about total systems, you are only talking about landscape.
Mr. BABCOCK. I will refuse to let my panel talk about this subject.
JOHN J. LOGUE. I would like to bring up very briefly the matter of
suburban freeways. Big cities can defend open space such as Rock
Creek Park and Central Park but it is extremely difficult for the sub-
urban areas to do so with their weak governments and small areas of
jurisdiction. New developments and new highways are going to
create new traffic problems and it will take real effort to protect sub-
urban open space. I am talking about the famous Blue Route con-
troversy. I wonder whether Federal and State highway agencies
couldn't introduce a new principle, namely abstention from taking
creek valley lands in suburban areas, if at all possible. We proposed
this to the President last Sunday.
Mr. WHITTON. The last location that I saw, that looked the best
to me for the Blue Route in Pennsylvania, took very little of the
creek valley that you speak of. I forget the name of it. I wonder
if you have seen the proposed location.
Mr. LOGUE. I have seen it. I disagree with you.
Mr. BABCOCK. I suggest you two get together.
A DELEGATE. I have a question for Mr. Sargent. In the event
State and local governments or even another Federal bureau rec-
ommend one location for an interstate road and the Federal
Bureau of Public Roads insists on another location which in the
opinion of the State and communities involved is damaging to the
master plan of the area, or to its natural and recreational resources
I believe there are about 16 such cases pending at the moment-
could not some impartial review board be set up to whom such
779-595 65 14
204 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
cases might be referred for decision? Is it feasible to do such a
thing?
Mr. SARGENT. I think it would be very difficult to get anything
done. I think that the State is sensitive to the local scene. I think
that the State works with the local communities. We certainly hold
public hearings. We take into consideration the views of the local
people and then we in turn work with the Federal Government.
It seems to me if we have superimposed on this a further limitation,
we would veto it. Creating a committee such as we are doing in
our State where we have landscape architects, architects, and other
experts serve and advise us, is very helpful. We are glad to have
advice and criticism. But I think to have any further vetoes placed
on our operation would make it almost impossible to operate at all.
Mrs. J. LEWIS SCOTT. The plant ecologist should design right-of-
way vegetation and the policy for its management. Broadcast
herbicide spraying removes valuable vegetation such as native wild-
flowers and shrubs. Selective use of herbicides and treating the
vegetation according to ecological principles will insure the protec-
tion of natural beauty in keeping with highway safety.
BOYD MILLER. I have quick suggestions to make. The interstate
system as it started was built in entirely too short sections to make
any kind of natural beauty possible. As you drive through the newer
parts you can see where the additions changed in design, which gives
you a kind of patchwork.
Then, too, you go through sections that have been neglected. I
wonder if the Federal Government is going to do anything about
that. The agencies should get together throughout the whole system.
HENRY WARD. I think there are two points that are very im-
portant. No one on the panel answered the question about legisla-
tion forbidding a highway going through a park. I have spent most
of my life in this area. It would be a serious mistake to prohibit the
use of this land for highway purposes because it had been a park. I
hope that this doesn't give some of you the idea that there is something
absolutely sacred about a piece of land merely because once it was
called a park. Land is for public use. We are building for it. I
participated in building parks. I have built highways for public use.
The greatest use for the benefit of the public is what that land ought
to be used for.
THE DESIGN OF THE HIGHWAY 205
Now, the other thing, the other matter there is an impression
here that the Federal Government is putting bulldozers out, that Mr.
Whitton is doing this. It is not true. The Federal Government
does not initiate a single highway project. Under the law it can't.
The initiation is with the States. The recommendation is made by
the States. If you don't like what your States are doing, argue
with your State, not with Mr. Whitton who has plenty of arguments
from us as administrators.
IRSTON R. BARNES. I would like to express my distrust of highway
engineers.
And I should also like to dissent from the commissioner's last
statement. There hasn't been a single park in Washington that
hasn't been threatened with a highway. It is much easier to build
a highway than it is to build a park. You don't build parks. Nature
does that. The most important thing that this panel could recom-
mend would be to have a set of values which would guide the loca-
tion of highways and it should begin by recognizing that no high-
way improves the beauty of a natural landscape. It is an intrusion.
We should recognize it as such.
Now, these are perhaps unpleasant truths, but I think these are
the truths that represent the public point of view as opposed to the
engineer's point of view. I should like to see the public's point of
view at least acknowledged in the report of this panel.
Statements Submitted for the Record
IRSTON R. BARNES. The appropriate uses of scenic easements
and zoning require more critical consideration than was accorded
these items during the conference.
The scenic easement must not become a blackmail device in the
hands of those who would appropriate for private profit the values
created by public investment.
These comments are particularly pertinent in relation to new
dimensions of billboard blight along parkways and other highways
with respect to which public policy has determined that there shall
be no billboards.
The contempt of the outdoor advertising industry for public policy
and public values is exemplified by new huge billboards erected on
steel scaffolding above the treetops. They have been placed beyond
the highway rights-of-way. Examples of such flagrant disregard of
206 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
public interests can be seen in the signs of petroleum companies and
automobile dealers along Interstate 95 in Virginia, along the New
Jersey Turnpike, and in my own State of Connecticut along the
Merritt and Cross parkways. A particularly objectionable instance is
the Howard Johnson billboard in Milford on the east bank of the
Housatonic River, which is visible more than a mile away in Strat-
ford! No scenic easements should be paid for to eliminate these
abuses.
The 1,000-foot standard (no signs within 1,000 feet of the high-
way) for billboards and signs along interstate highways is not an
adequate or appropriate yardstick. A visibility test is needed. Any
sign which is visible from an interstate highway or parkway is pre-
sumptively a trespass on the highway. It impairs public invest-
ment in the highway. It is a trespass on public property. It should
be dealt with as a trespass, as an unlawful device to appropriate and
to destroy community values created by public investment.
Scenic easements also represent public investments. They should
be employed only to reimburse property owners for values inherent
in their property, and not created by public investment which are
foregone in order to create or to preserve community values. No
property owner is entitled to compensation, or blackmail, to prevent
a private appropriation or destruction of values created by public
investment. No property owner has a right to use his land for bill-
boards which trespass on the property and values created by a public
investment in a highway.
Injunction suits and Federal zoning authority adequate to pro-
tect Federal investments in parks, in highways, in national monu-
ments, etc. are the appropriate legal instruments to protect public
investments from being appropriated and destroyed by private
interests.
GEORGE J. EICHER. The American Fisheries Society would like
to make a statement with respect to highway and freeway construc-
tion.
Too often freeways are constructed without thought of access to
fishing and recreational areas. Not only is it often difficult to leave
such freeways in the vicinity of recreational areas, but frequently such
construction cuts off preexisting routes and renders such areas
inaccessible.
We urge that future highway planning take into consideration
access to fishing and other recreational areas.
THE DESIGN OF THE HIGHWAY 207
IRVING HAND. In attending the sessions on highways, one became
sensitive to the conflict of speed vs. beauty in the engineering of
highways.
The effective utilization of time is a landmark in the advancement
of technology in our Nation. The confrontation we face and must
resolve is whether we face an irrevocable conflict in preserving the
beauty of our Nation or sacrificing it to the demands of our economic
development. This is not to say that manmade environment will not
achieve a beauty of its own. Rather, can we retain the natural
beauty of our physical environment while gaining the wonders of
mankind.
We must identify the values in our environment in our lives
which are significant and which we hope to achieve. This judgment
is fundamental to what has been extended as an obvious truth that
the traveling public wishes to enjoy the visual scene it experiences
when driving vs. the temptation to use high-speed highways for just
that purpose high speeds in getting from "here to there."
A. G. ODELL, Jr. As I stated at the meeting of the National
Advisory Committee on Highway Beautification of the Secretary of
Commerce, the motivation of the Federal Government in supporting
systems of transportation has always been to stimulate and facilitate
interstate and intercity transportation. This has been true ever since
Thomas Jefferson made a master plan of American roads and canals
in 1804. It is true with our interstate highway program and the
government's support of air travel.
Our current concern with the effects of roads in our landscape
whether in recognition of automobile junkyards, billboards, over-
head utility wires, roadside rest places, or recreational open spaces
is a recognition of the fact that we must now plan ahead for all
the areas that transportation systems affect.
Our improved road systems are one of the main reasons our cities
enlarge, and are a main reason for the growth of suburbs and subur-
ban shopping centers. To merely adorn these phenomena with trees
or shrubs is to miss the real problem entirely.
The real problem is to design all the areas affected by highways.
Beautification is, to be sure, an important aspect of design but let
us not put the cart before the horse. It may be that our concern
over the appearance of auto graveyards is the expression of a national
embarrassment with our extravagant waste.
208 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
Simply stated, we should build into our highway planning a process
where design is required, indeed where it leads the whole effort. It
is not enough to invite design consultants or to have partial funds
for design or planning. That has not worked up to this point.
We have already developed the technical knowledge to design
the rural highway. We have been doing it for a half century or
more.
Since our urban areas will double in size within the next 35 years,
the real frontier of environmental design today is the city and the
key to its design is to understand how highways affect the city. Here
we Americans ought to be making a large investment in exploratory
design as we have done with radios, TV sets, jet airplanes, and
rockets to the moon.
ROBERT L. PERKINS, Jr. Highways directly destroy natural beauty
in two ways: first by their location, second by the way they
are constructed. The first is fairly obvious. As to the second,
design and construction methods may bring about results such as
large-scale pollution by silt or the ravaging of nearby lands for the
purpose of obtaining or disposing of fill.
There is an urgent need to provide some real balance in the process
of route selection and design between the economic and engineering
factors, and the other resource values, both tangible and intangible.
A procedure should be established to give appropriate and unbiased
consideration to all resource values involved and to use this as a basis
for decisions. At present, little or no consideration is given to the
destruction of natural, scenic, and historic areas and, in fact, such
lands are likely to act as a magnet in drawing highways.
The more successful the protectors of such areas have been the
more likely it is that a highway planner will select those areas as the
cheapest route. The facts that a highway may destroy such a tract's
usefulness, for the public purpose for which it was set aside, and that
the nearest thing to a replacement for that public purpose costs an
enormous amount may not be a deterrent. Highway planners in
most cases are not required to be concerned with replacement value
but only with the highway's effect on the market value of the land's
so-called highest and best use, as determined by condemnation com-
missioners which use is usually for housing or for industry, and may
not be greatly reduced by the proposed highway even if the natural
values are largely destroyed.
THE DESIGN OF THE HIGHWAY 209
THEODORE R. ROGOWSKI. "What makes you believe a river is
more important than a concrete highway?"
These are the words which greeted our delegation travelling from
New York City to the Department of Commerce in Washington
when we met in private session to urge that a Federally financed high-
way be relocated, asking that the highway be kept at least 400 yards
from the very edge of some 6 miles of a free-flowing river. We
recommended that a greenbelt, preferably with the existing trees
intact, be preserved to maintain the natural visual beauty of the
river, to protect the river from the oil, refuse, and sun-baked pave-
ment of the highway.
When we asked that an alternative route some miles distant be
considered, the curt answer was "We need that area for the next
system of super highways."
We respectfully submit to this conference that there was no real
issue of money or cost in making these decisions; the problem we
confronted was that of personality. The planners had made a selec-
tion of route which was now being challenged. It was a very per-
sonal thing. And there was a professional blindness to correction.
There seems a consensus of opinion voiced here that the Federal
highway system has succeeded in the countryside but has failed in
the urban areas. We submit it is a matter of degree, and we feel
the failure has been serious in the rural areas as well.
Our recommendation is, therefore, that scenic corridors between
highway and waterways, separating concrete from waterways by a
minimum distance of 1,000 feet, be a mandatory requirement in the
highway design standards recommended by this White House con-
ference. This protective zone would help keep the waters of the
river cool by preserving the natural river banks, pure by removing a
source of oil and litter pollution, and naturally beautiful by remov-
ing the noise of the highway and the eyesore of speeding traffic.
This 1,000-foot scenic corridor would further preserve bird and
animal sanctuary and would allow nature trails, picnic and rest
areas contiguous to the river all of which are permanently, irrevo-
cably destroyed when the highway is built at the very edge of the
river, sometimes in fact causing the river to be rechanneled.
A definition of ugliness: a highway encroaching upon a river
bank. A definition of beauty: the glimpse of a river valley from a
distance. Let us not confuse the two so as to run our highways
plumb down the river basin, destroying the thing of beauty and the
river to recreational use.
210 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
We would like to affirm that the open space programs will work
only if the engineers of the Bureau of Public Roads, Department of
Commerce, will approach these problems with open minds.
Dr. J. HAROLD SEVERAID. The triple-decker, massive, concrete
freeway over an equally massive and sterile concrete-lined riverbed
in Los Angeles County represents a choice example of what we should
avoid if we can. I am less concerned about the inevitable need for
some such monstrosities than I am about the fact that engineers are
proud of them. Only when the engineer views such masses of con-
crete with the same abhorence as does the conservationist can we rest
secure in the knowledge that our cities will be treated to a minimum
of them.
MAX M. THARP. A carefully planned recreation program well in-
tegrated with the interstate and other Federal-aid highway systems
is needed. Both mobility and recreation can be provided when both
activities are balanced. Combining recreation and transportation is
a practical application of the principles of multiple purpose and
balanced use.
Recreation should be made an integral part of the major park-
way, interstate, State, and county highway networks. Three dif-
ferent types of recreation facilities, depending on landscape, ter-
rain, and other natural features as well as the limitations required
for traffic management, should be developed at stated intervals to
meet present and expected future recreation demands. These are :
1. Highway rest parks could be back from the highway a relatively
short distance, not more than 3 miles, depending on terrain and
availability of appropriate sites. Generally the areas would be
screened from the main highway by plantings or natural geologic
features. They would differ from the usual waysides and lookouts
in location, facilities, and size. Access to highway rest parks could
be provided by feeder roads at appropriate interchanges.
Concession facilities could be provided if the number of visitors
created sufficient demand for them, but there would be no overnight
facilities.
2. Highway recreation areas should be located in rural areas near
major highway networks. The nature of the resources and their
natural setting should be taken into consideration in planning such
areas. The type and intensity of use for which they could be de-
veloped would depend on these factors. Year-round usefulness
should be considered in selecting and developing these areas. For
THE DESIGN OF THE HIGHWAY 211
example, in northern areas, winter sports might be developed as a
major feature, with hiking trails and other extensive-use recreation
facilities as a supplement for the summer season to provide year-
round use. On the other hand, where climate permits, opportu-
nities for swimming and water sports might be provided throughout
the year.
3. Rural-urban recreation centers would be characterized by in-
tensive urban daytime recreation use. They should be located in
rural areas adjacent to cities where highways provide easy, safe access
to the metropolitan population. They would provide mass recreation
facilities primarily for city dwellers. Campsites, however, would be
featured in some areas to provide for overnight and weekend camp-
ing. Parts of the sites would be for particular use by organized
groups. The new interstate highways, city bypasses, and circum-
ferential highways could provide access to these recreation areas.
These rural-urban recreation centers may be developed by the
cities or by the States. However, they could be developed with Fed-
eral assistance and leased to the communities for operation. In any
case, private enterprise could supply the services and facilities for
which users would be expected to pay. If public facilities were pro-
vided, they could be operated by concessionaires as is done in some
national parks and forests.
Through development of integrated highway recreation facilities,
the increased mobility of our people can be directly linked with out-
door recreation. By proper planning and management of recreation
areas for specific uses, the increasing recreation demands can be met
and purpose given to our restless mobility.
CHAPTER 9
SCENIC ROADS AND PARKWAYS
3:30 p.m., Monday, May 24
The Chairman, Senator FARR. The average American spends two
months of his life behind the steering wheel of his automobile, not
counting his vacation, which may also be behind the wheel. On the
Federal level, no other domestic program spends more of our tax-
payers' money than does our highways program, paid for by the
motorist out of highway users' funds.
Consequently, the American motorist is entitled to and he de-
serves to drive on a safe, well-designed and aesthetic highway. From
that highway, he is entitled to see "a more beautiful America."
I hope that this Panel on Scenic Roads and Parkways will focus
its attention on some of the following questions:
How do we satisfy the recreation desires of the traveler by car?
What do we mean by scenic highways, parkways, corridor pro-
tection, and scenic easements?
What are the legal and financial devices to protect the scenic
corridor? How do we make sure that engineering principles in
highway design consider simultaneously safety, good engineering
standards, landscape design, and aesthetics?
What can we do to cut down the estimated $100 million it now
costs the American taxpayers to clean up the litter on our road-
sides?
What is now being done on national, State, and local levels to
develop scenic roads and parkways?
After the Federal interstate system is completed in 1972, should
Members of the Panel on Scenic Roads and Parkways were Sen-
ator Fred S. Farr (Chairman), George B. Hartzog, Jr., David R.
Levin, Kevin Lynch, Edward G. Michaelian, Senator Gaylord
Nelson, and Mrs. Ralph A. Reynolds. Staff Associate was Dudley
C. Bayliss.
213
214 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
a major portion of highway users' funds be directed toward the
needs of the recreation motorist?
What about the freeway in the city? Can it be made useful,
safe, and beautiful?
How can we give meaningful recognition to those States, those
communities, those engineers, architects, and landscape architects
who see to it that the roads, parkways, and highways they design
become an integral part of "a more beautiful America"?
Mr. HARTZOG. The National Park Service of the Department
of the Interior believes that the national parkway concepts and
principles developed over the past 30 years at the Blue Ridge, Natchez
Trace, Foothills, George Washington Memorial, and Colonial Park-
ways offer great promise to our national road program.
In all of these there was a valuable, specialized Bureau of Public
Roads' contribution of engineering skill and teamwork with the
landscape architects and architects of the National Park Service.
This teamwork continues on current programs of park and parkway
roads resulting in handsome routes for leisurely travel. They are
located to best fit the natural topography, taking advantage
of scenic, historic, and recreation objectives along the way and
encouraging a ride-a-while, stop-a-while experience.
The same principles could provide good scenic qualities and rec-
reational opportunities free from roadside clutter if extended and
applied to new national or State parkways or to preselected sections
of existing State roads or highways.
We applaud the State of California's pioneer work in developing
its recently authorized Scenic Highway System. Our panel chair-
man, Senator Fred Farr, was most instrumental in this program.
As our part in achieving these purposes, we plan to :
1. Continue National Park Service park road and parkway pro-
grams anually under Federal-aid Highway Act authorizations.
2. Expand the park road program to provide access to new na-
tional park system areas as they are authorized by the Congress.
The President's Message on Natural Beauty proposed several for
establishment.
3. Expand national parkway studies to provide greater national
representation. For example, joint studies by the National Park
Service and the Bureau of Public Roads have recently been com-
pleted on two proposed national parkways. They are the Allegheny
Parkway, 632 miles long, connecting Harpers Ferry and Cumberland
SCENIC ROADS AND PARKWAYS 215
Gap National Historical Parks through West Virginia, Virginia, and
Kentucky; and the extension of the Blue Ridge Parkway, 190 miles
from Beech Gap, N.Q, to Kennesaw Mountain National Battle-
field Park north of Atlanta, Ga. Legislation authorizing establish-
ment of both Parkways is now before the Congress.
We expect to complete joint studies this summer on two other
national parkway proposals. One is the Washington Country
Parkway in Virginia, a 550-mile loop from Mount Vernon through
tidewater Virginia to Yorktown, Williamsburg, and Jamestown,
thence to the Skyline Drive and on to Harpers Ferry, returning
to Washington along the Potomac River. Part of this loop is already
completed in the form of existing national parkways and scenic
highways with great historic interest. The other is the Cumber-
land Parkway, which would connect the Great Smoky Mountains,
Cumberland Gap, Mammoth Cave, and the Natchez Trace Park-
way, 350 miles through Tennessee and Kentucky.
Other studies will be programed as the over-all scenic roads and
parkways program progresses.
4. Continue to collaborate with the Bureau of Public Roads
on advisory services to the 10 Mississippi River Valley States on
the Great River Road. This road embodies national parkway
principles and objectives such as wide rights-of-way, scenic ease-
ments, access control, and provision of recreational features en
route.
I would like to compliment the States of Minnesota and Wis-
consin on their legislation and subsequent action in acquiring addi-
tional lands, scenic easements, and access control on their portions
of the Great River Road. Minnesota is the first State to make
use of the section 319 authorization for this purpose. Wiscon-
sin, thanks to the fine efforts of my fellow panelist, Senator Gay-
lord Nelson, has extended scenic easement purchases statewide,
thereby guaranteeing the preservation of scenic beauty along many
miles of its highways. At the same time, this protection brings
the promise of future visitors and their vacation dollars to repay
the cost many times over.
5. Work closely with Dr. David R. Levin and the Recrea-
tion Advisory Council agencies in developing a sound national
program for scenic roads and parkways.
One of the most important parts of such a program is to nail
down, as soon as possible, the scenic corridor needed for the im-
216 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
plementation of this program. To do this, we will require many
tools some new, some familiar ones, such as the mandatory use
of section 319 authorization in the Federal-aid Highway Act;
the adoption of legislation at the State and Federal level author-
izing fee purchases with "sell-back" authority for compatible de-
velopment and use; scenic easements and access regulation; zon-
ing ordinances, and special Federal incentive programs to recog-
nize outstanding work.
Mr. MICHAELIAN. The scenic parkway system was born in my own
county of Westchester. Back at the turn of the century, Westchester
County and New York City teamed up to end the pollution of a
small stream approximately 25 miles in length that rises above the
city of White Plains and flows southward into Bronx Park in New
York City. The problem of the pollution of that stream created a re-
quest for a reservation of right-of-way on both banks of the stream
known as the Bronx River Parkway Reservation. This later became
the site of the first parkway in our country. Construction began in
1916 and was halted because of the war; it was resumed after the
war and was finally, that small stretch of parkway, opened com-
pletely in 1924. This parkway was designed in an era when speeds
in the towns and villages and cities were approximately 15 miles
an hour. The parkway in particular in those days was a speed-
way, because the speed limit was 35 miles an hour; and only recently
have we raised the speed limit to 40 miles an hour. We are very proud
of that stretch of parkway and it will be the last thing my county
will ever give up because we think it is a symbol. From that has
grown the total concept of a parkway system in the State of New
York; it has been followed by the New York State Parkways, Pali-
sades Interstate System, and so on. Other parkways were built in
the State of Connecticut. The Merritt and Hutchinson River Park-
ways form a parkway system linking New York to Connecticut.
What is the concept of a parkway or scenic highway? First of
all, from the initial planning and construction stage, what we strive
to do is to create a greenbelt, provide a scenic vista, preserve for
public view and enjoyment our streams, rivers, and waterways,
strive to interconnect recreation facilities, so that they may be reached
by a network of parkways or scenic highways to dramatize and
make the natural scenery, with which we are endowed by nature,
available for viewing.
SCENIC ROADS AND PARKWAYS 217
There is one thing that we must watch very carefully, once
having constructed parkways, and I can tell you this from our
own experience. Care must be taken to prevent erosion, and erosion
can be prevented by the appropriation of sufficient funds to pro-
tect not only the highway itself, but its slopes, shoulders and the
vistas. This is particularly applicable where streams, rivers and the
sea are concerned. Construction, where necessary, of channels,
berms, seawalls, jetties, or other proper precautionary measures,
must be undertaken.
The greenbelt concept of a scenic highway or parkway requires
an ever-vigilant attitude to prevent attrition by demand of local
communities for their use for purposes such as parking facilities,
community building construction, playgrounds designed for inten-
sive use, power transmission lines, pumping stations, public util-
ity buildings, school purposes, and the like.
All too often, because open space area is the easiest way out, the
nibbling begins, mostly under local pressure.
Another facet contributing to attrition is the desire to utilize
the parkway for mixed traffic to avoid building additional high-
ways for that purpose. Here the pressure to convert comes from
those opposed to the construction of new highway facilities. The
revitalization of the railroads with the use of new equipment and
techniques leading to a more intensive use of railroad roadbeds,
and with the railroads in a more competitive position with other
modes of transportation might check somewhat the demand for
continuing expansion and construction of highways for mixed
traffic.
Dr. LEVIN. The scenic roads and parkways study was initiated
last summer, in the Department of Commerce, at the request of the
Recreation Advisory Council. A study manual containing defini-
tions and criteria was formulated. On the basis of the specifica-
tions of the manual, the States made nominations of scenic roads and
parkways and provided us with all kinds of data on mileage, costs,
resource groups, complementary facilities, and related information.
These data are now being analyzed, with the help of computers. A
final report on the study will be tendered this summer. It will con-
tain a recommended national program of scenic roads and parkways,
and suggest alternative means of financing the program. It will be
sent to the White House and probably will be transmitted to the Con-
gress for its consideration.
218 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
Several characteristics will distinguish the proposed program from
any other kind of highway program ever authorized. First, it will
try to meld recreation and transportation into a new mix or syn-
thesis. It will heavily emphasize the corridor concept; the corridor
is the areaway beyond the highway right-of-way, which imputes to
the traveled way its scenic qualities and makes possible a recreation
opportunity for the motorist, whether he is in motion or at rest. It
will provide a complex of complementary facilities, which are road-
side rests, camera stops, scenic overlooks, campsites, boat-launch-
ing sites, hiking and bicycle trails, and the like. It will cater heavily
to population proximity; that is, the facilities will be located rea-
sonably close, in terms of driving time, to the major centers of
population of the Nation.
Probably three or four varying-sized programs will be proposed :
A minimum program, a maximum program, and several inter-
mediate ones. For each of these, its estimated costs, physical ele-
ments, service characteristics, and mileage will be given. It then
will be up to the President and the Congress to determine which pro-
gram should be authorized.
Senator NELSON. It is difficult to discuss resources and the proper
protection, preservation and utilization of our resources in bits and
pieces, since all of the problems that we are discussing at this con-
ference are interrelated.
I understand that it is desired that I say something about scenic
easements and how we have used them in the State of Wisconsin;
that I make a brief comment about section 3 1 9 of the highway code,
and say something on the question of zoning as well as about high-
ways. I will also volunteer a comment here (because I don't see
it elsewhere on the panel ) in respect to hiking and camping trails.
First, on the question of easements: As all of us know who
have dealt with the acquisition of lands, one of the problems we
run into regularly is the problem of making an acquisition over
the resistance of property owners or groups of property owners.
We happen to have a good statute in the State of Wisconsin
which gives the same condemnation powers for acquisition of rec-
reation land as the highway department has for highways, ex-
cept the highway department can condemn and take first and settle
the price later, whereas the question of price has to be settled be-
fore the taking under Conservation Department law. This is a
good law. It is as important to acquire property for recreation
SCENIC ROADS AND PARKWAYS 219
as it is to acquire property for highways. We have used it to
acquire some 170 miles of scenic easements along the highways
in our State, 111 miles of it along the Great River Road.
We have about 75 percent of the necessary easements on both
sides of that highway, which is a magnificently beautified high-
way. About 75 percent of what we intend to acquire has been
acquired. The cost was about $1,250 per mile.
One of the advantages of easements is that many property
owners who do not wish to sell their land in fee are recognizing
the importance of preserving the beauty of the area. They are
willing to sell the easement in perpetuity, protecting the scenic beauty
of the area so whoever inherits it or subsequently purchases the
property may not, without consent of the State, cut down any
trees or build any billboards or structures of any kind.
These easements will permanently protect the beauty of this
highway along the Mississippi River. In this case, the easement
device was used mainly for the preservation of scenic beauty. It
is a good device not only for this purpose, but also for acquiring
wetlands, springs, sources of water, and so forth. Again, these ease-
ments are purchased from farmers and other owners who don't wish
to give title to the property but recognize the importance of pro-
tecting it. We have found it a useful device and we shall continue to
use it extensively and increasingly in our State.
Section 319 of the Highway Act for some 20 years or thereabouts
has provided that States may use up to 3 percent of their Federal
highway funds for the acquiring of easements for scenic beauty along
the highways. For 20 years this provision of the statute hasn't been
used.
I introduced a bill last session and in this session to set up match-
ing funds on a 50-50 basis. I wrote all 50 governors and had a
response, I think, from about 45 of them. They were all for the
idea, but everyone asked where they would get the matching money.
I am satisfied that the pressures for construction of the highways
are such that the present Federal statute won't be used.
I think it is time the people interested in conservation in this
country start talking about general fund moneys for the purpose of
conservation. We have attempted for far too long to survive in the
conservation field upon fees of various kinds : fishing licenses, hunt-
ing fees, the land and water conservation bill, etc. The fact of the
matter is that the conservation of our resources is just as important
779-59516515
220 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
as education. We have long recognized the necessity for supporting
the educational system out of general funds of various kinds and
general taxes. We should use general funds much more extensively
in the conservation field. I will say something more about that in a
moment.
We made a tragic mistake here in the Congress when the
law was passed authorizing construction of the Interstate Com-
merce and Defense Highway System. The Congress should
have required that all the interchanges across this Nation on this
magnificient highway system be zoned. We are going to have
several thousand interchanges along this highway and half, if not
more, are going to be ugly slums with taverns, honky tonks, and
unsightly developments all across the country. Ours is a limited-
access system which, of course, permits no business of any kind
on the highways. So each interchange is an economic asset that
attracts development.
We did not require the zoning of those interchanges. This
was a tragic mistake which we will regret for all time to come.
While I think easements are an important device to use in pre-
serving scenic beauty, I think the zoning power of the State is
potentially more important. We have 10,000 miles of State high-
ways in our State. We made an attempt on two occasions in
our State to control the construction of billboards in areas of scenic
beauty along the State trunk highways. The proposal passed one
house of our legislature but was defeated in the other by the billboard
lobby. I would think it would be well worthwhile to persuade the
outdoor advertisers to join in support of a sound measure now that
the President has so dramatically called to our attention the damage
we are doing to the beauty of our country.
I don't see exactly where hiking trails might fit into this panel dis-
cussion, but I think they do fit some place. I think we can provide
more opportunity for recreation with less money by the creation of
hiking and camping trails than by any other investment we can make.
We have a vast amount of public lands in some parts of our country;
we have 2 million acres in our State. I made a proposal last week
to a conference in Wisconsin for 3,000 miles of hiking trails in the
State which would put a chain of hiking trails along the shores of our
lakes and along rivers and through the public lands and the national
forests. This 3,000-mile trail system would put hiking and camping
SCENIC ROADS AND PARKWAYS 221
trails within 30 minutes' driving time of everybody in the State of
Wisconsin and, in many parts, less than that.
Along all our scenic parkways and scenic drives, it is a very
simple matter to carefully plot out a hiking and camping trail sys-
tem and make the necessary acquisition by easement. We can
develop a plan and get the participation of the Boy Scouts, Girl
Scouts, church groups, and campers as they have done so magnifi-
cently for so many years with the Appalachian Trail, which is
maintained on a voluntary basis by the members of the Appalachian
Trail Conference.
I think this is a very fruitful direction in which to turn in
connection with the development of our scenic roads and waterways.
One title is missing, it seems to me, in this conference, and that
is what I would call the politics of conservation. We have not
failed the conservationists have not failed for having ideas. Great
speeches were made by John Muir a hundred years ago on what was
coming and great speeches were made by Teddy Roosevelt and
by many each generation since. Fortunately, the late President Ken-
nedy and now President Johnson have been giving vigorous execu-
tive political leadership to the question of conservation. We see the
whole country becoming aroused by the kind of leadership we are
getting now. We need that leadership at the national level. In fact,
it is crucial, but we need it also at the State level and at the local
level. We don't fail for ideas, we fail for translating these ideas into
political action. Over all the years I have dealt with the very fine
conservation organizations who are concerned, interested, and who
support good conservation practices, our failure has been a political
failure.
It is a very strange thing to me because the fact of the matter
is that there is not an issue in America in my judgment more impor-
tant than the conservation of our resources: water, soil, forest,
wilderness, and air. There is no political issue with broader public
appeal to it because it is the only issue I know of that cuts across
every conceivable political line and touches every single individual
from the little lady in New York with a pot of flowers outside her
window or the bird watcher, or hunter, fisherman, camper, sailor,
hiker, or what have you. Some aspect of nature directly touches and
interests every single person in America in one way or another. There
isn't any other issue as broad as this one. This is why it seems so
strange to me that we haven't had the kind of political leadership
222 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
we should have had in the past at the Presidential level ( and which
we are getting now) and why we haven't had it at every political
level. I think it proves, more than anything else, the lack of per-
ception by our politicians rather than lack of interest by the people.
Without going into details, let me tell you the experience that we
had of putting a penny tax on cigarettes in my State. Anybody who
has been in politics realizes that it is always toughest to pass an excise
tax because it is so visible. People oppose taxes (although they love
the services) so that every time you put a tax on something you gen-
erate great opposition. When we made our proposal, we detailed
an expenditure of $50 million for parks and wetlands acquisition and
wildlife habitat and scenic easements and so forth and drafted maps
and showed the people of the State everything we were going to pur-
chase during the next ten years. When we told them, we received
editorial support from every single newspaper in Wisconsin without
exception. Of the hundreds of letters I received., I received only one
in opposition. The expression of opposition was not to the program,
but because the smokers were going to be required to pay for it.
This demonstrates the kind of support the public is willing to
give to a program if they see what the program is all about. Our
failure has been not to delineate a large program that people can
see and feel. The President is providing remarkable leadership on
this issue. I am hopeful he will at the proper time make a major
comprehensive proposal that will meet the whole conservation issue
head-on. I think it is crucial he paint with a big brush and make it
clear to the country that we have maybe a decade left, maybe a little
more, to make a major investment in preserving those things which
provide quality of living in this country. We are talking about
substantial general fund moneys. We must, for example, spend $50
billion to $75 billion just to clean up the water of this country. Our
rivers are being destroyed at an accelerated pace. The tragic cir-
cumstance is that there is not a single major river in America left, as
far as I know, except the Saint Croix River, that is close to a metro-
politan area and still unpolluted. The Great Lakes are being
destroyed very rapidly. On Lake Erie last year 2,400 square miles
were without oxygen because of pollution. We are polluting all
the underground water supply in this country. The Mississippi is
polluted. All the major watersheds are polluted. To clean up our
waters I think we must give substantial aid to industry and our
municipalities. Whatever the cost, the return both in the oppor-
SCENIC ROADS AND PARKWAYS 223
tunity to enjoy this asset plus the economic return from restoring
that asset will repay many times over the cost.
We are not only talking about pollution, but of a total conserva-
tion program. Our time is short. The job is big but the course
is right and the people are ready to support it.
Mrs. REYNOLDS. I would like to say a little bit about the special
problems in regard to scenic highways as they face States such as
California. Such States have very large areas, so that the highway
systems are of a tremendous mileage, they have an unusually high
rate of population increase, and are often, at least in some parts,
characterized by a very stubborn insistence on home rule. These
three characteristics bring about certain problems to which I would
like to suggest a few approaches.
In the first place, the population expansion which is very great in
some of our western States is, of course, resulting in the gobbling up,
at a very rapid rate, of open spaces including the corridors of high-
ways which run through scenic areas.
In the second place, the increase in population brings about a con-
stant pressure on highway officials to give more lanes for more traffic
in a hurry. Where a two-lane meandering road is going to have to
be improved to carry more traffic, there is a tendency to improve it
by making it into at least the first half of a freeway. In other words,
reengineering it, reconstructing it according to freeway specifications
which means 65 miles or 75 miles an hour traffic flow. That may or
may not be all right. If it is a scenic highway, thought should be
given to whether the special qualities that are inherent in the
meandering road will be completely destroyed by converting it into
half a freeway, to be made later into a whole freeway.
In the third place, there is reluctance on the part of highway
officials, for the reasons which Senator Nelson has mentioned, to
spend any of the Federal funds which are available for aesthetic
development. In many cases there is also a lack of understanding
and training in aesthetic principles on the part of highway officials.
Now, just to suggest a few of the approaches to these problems.
First of all, Senator Nelson has mentioned ways of bringing about the
use of the highway funds which are available. I think that has a
great deal of importance.
We might, to very good advantage, make funds unavailable to any
State which has on its books laws which militate against a reasonable
approach to the aesthetic development of highways, or to the rea-
224 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
sonable protection of park lands. In California, we have some laws
in our statute books now which we are trying to get rid of. The
provision I have suggested might very well provide a leverage to help
us eliminate such laws.
Another approach could be pressure applied to universities to have
the schools of engineering include in their requirements basic train-
ing in aesthetic highway design and basic principles of conservation.
One of the very best approaches for States which are not able to
convert a great number of their beautiful highways into parkways
is to develop a State scenic highways system such as has been estab-
lished in California, largely to the credit of Senator Fair who
introduced the authorizing legislation.
A map that shows this system is displayed in this room, which I
hope you will look at later. There is also, among the publications
available, material on the scenic highway system. This system
divides the responsibility between the division of highways, the
agency responsible for bringing the roadways and the comple-
mentary developments up to high standards, and other agencies
of the government which are responsible for protecting the scenic
corridors. Unless both those conditions are met, the highways
will not be admitted officially into the scenic highway system.
This system is just beginning, but we think it has great promise.
Mr. LYNCH. I would like to make a proposal that the concept of
the scenic road and scenic corridor be applied to the city itself,
directly to the urban area. This may seem a strange idea to put
forth. Everyone knows that cities are very ugly places and city high-
ways are some of the more ugly parts of it. Who would want to
drive for pleasure on a city highway?
It may be that there are more people driving for pleasure on our
city highways than we think and, whether that is true or not, certainly
it is on these channels that the great majority of our citizens are
moving back and forth every day in the course of their other business.
Surely what they see is of some consequence to us.
It is not possible to separate the visual experience into a little box,
to say one looks only when one is on vacation. We are striving to
improve the whole visual experience, the whole world that surrounds
us.
I would go further, and say that the city is potentially just as fas-
cinating as a forest or a piece of rural landscape perhaps more so
because it is much richer in human connotations. We have the
SCENIC ROADS AND PARKWAYS 225
means within our hands to make our city landscapes just as enjoyable,
just as exhilarating as any other part of our national landscape.
The concept of the scenic road would have to be applied differently
to the city. You would not be able to control a wide visual corridor
in any rigid manner. Nor would you be able to develop roads which
are primarily for leisurely kind of driving. (Although even here, I
am no so sure. There is just the possibility that we may think again
of pleasure roads built just for that purpose. This, of course, was
the original parkway idea, which was later swamped by commuter
traffic.) But even in a mixed multipurpose road, there are ways
in which you can handle the alignment, the general location, the
opening and screening of views, the form of nearby structures. All
of these things can be used to exhibit the city to the best advantage.
Whether they are ugly or handsome, cities are the symbols of our
society. The highway can uncover its rich diversity, its problems as
well as its potentials.
Not only can you use a highway to exhibit the city but you can so
arrange space and light, form and color to give a very rich succession
of visual events.
All of these things, incidentally, apply not only to the highway, but
to the entire movement system in the city. They can be considered
in a 400-miles-an-hour transit system or on a walkway.
One must be concerned not only with the view from the road but
with the view of it. I think I can pass over that because Mr. Halprin
did such a good job in describing how one might fit a city highway
to the whole fabric of a city. The idea of a corridor is of importance.
By dealing with the entire linear strip of environment and building
it as a whole, one can completely change the visual environment and
at the same time recapture values and begin to confront some of the
social and economic problems of relocation.
All of these things are technically possible now. We also need a
substantial effort of research involving not only the characteristics of
existing highway systems, but possible new technology and the whole
range of movement in a city. It should include possible design ideas
and studies of how people behave on a road. Some of the research
is already begun.
Now would be the time to build a prototype city road of this kind,
to allot the design time and talent that would be necessary to show
what could be done with this kind of system.
226 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
Questions and Discussion
Mr. HARTZOG. We were discussing some of these things last night
and in the process of the discussion, a question came up with respect
to the authority of your California Highway Department for freeways
and parkways. I understand there has been some concern on that
in California.
Mrs. REYNOLDS. Quite a good deal. You see, in California the
Division of Highways has the power to condemn land for highways,
even if it is in park land, even though the State Park Commission
and all the park officials do not give their approval. Well, they say,
look, it works beautifully because we have discussed it and we have
come to a solution. Of course, eventually, a solution is arrived at but
we don't feel that it is always a very handy solution.
As an example, a good many years ago, such a controversy in-
volved putting a freeway right through one of the most magnificent
areas of redwood groves. They couldn't come to a solution and
finally the Division of Beaches and Parks begged for a stay of some
time until they could do something on their own. They found some
additional funds and made their own highway survey and, after
they had done that, they finally got the route adopted that bypassed
the groves. But you see we don't consider that a handy way of
going about solving that problem. We feel, many of us, that since
a park commission is entrusted with the protection of the park lands
under its jurisdiction, it should be able to protect them to the fullest,
if necessary.
Dr. LEVIN. Mr. Chairman, what are the possibilities for incentive
and recognition awards in connection with scenic roads and high-
ways?
Senator FARR. As you know, our panel was discussing this matter
last night. It was the feeling of the panel that there should be
recognition for the engineers, architects, landscape architects, the
States and communities that do an outstanding job in preserving the
amenities by building beautiful safe highways. Perhaps this is of
such importance to the American people that there should be an
annual award at the very highest level. The President of the United
States could designate the "White House Highway" or the
"President's Highway of the Year."
Another suggestion grew out of the recent scenic highway and
SCENIC ROADS AND PARKWAYS 227
landmarks tour made by the First Lady. She focused a tremendous
amount of attention on the national parkways, and the interstate
system and the very fine roadside rest job that is being done in
Virginia.
Perhaps, Mrs. Johnson, you might wish to invite the wives of the
governors of all the States to conduct similar tours. This could be
a very, very effective thing throughout the country.
Mrs. REYNOLDS. Dr. Levin, in your opinion, to what extent are
most of our highway engineers well equipped to deal with the
aesthetics of highway design and conservation principles?
Dr. LEVIN. I think, through the years, the highway engineer
has shown a definite capacity for growth, I might say, Mrs.
Reynolds. I mean that very seriously. If you knew as I do some
of the boys who have been associated with the Federal Aid High-
way program, I think you will agree.
Thirty years ago we couldn't spend any money in the urban areas.
There was a prohibition in the law which said you could not spend
any money on the highway that had houses closer than 200 feet.
Accordingly, the highway departments were building highways in
rural areas. All of a sudden, Congress, in recognition of the trend
toward urbanization, changed the signals and changed the law. All
of a sudden the rural State highway departments found themselves
literally overnight in the urban highway business. Actually, at that
time, they knew very little about the urban area. They knew a great
deal about engineering on the highway but problems in the cities are
quite different. So through the years, and I say this very sincerely, the
highway engineer has rolled with the punches. I am confident that if
they are given the opportunity to do so, and the money and the au-
thorization, they will respond to the call.
Mrs. REYNOLDS. May I add just one word to that? In all fair-
ness, I want to underline what you have said. In ever so many cases
we find that where the highway engineers are being called the bad
boys and all the anathemas are being directed at them, actually they
are only following out the directive that the legislature has laid
out for them.
NATHANIEL O WINGS. I would like to address myself to the general
idea behind this whole problem underscored by scenic roads.
First, I have not heard anything about anybody giving anybody
anything. I think the good old-fashioned idea of somebody giving
228 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
some of these things we need for our great country should be more
in the forefront. We all know that we have great tax problems.
A great percentage of the land in this country is in its original
ownership. A great percentage is held by older people. A great
percentage of it is held by corporations who bought it for one pur-
pose and find that today, perhaps, those purposes are obsolete.
I would like to suggest that, since President Johnson has asked us to
have some imaginative thinking, we tackle the problem of getting
open spaces, particularly along scenic roads, by appealing to men's
pocketbooks. I am thinking in terms of the Federal tax appropria-
tions for large concerns. A large concern on the west coast might
pay a Federal tax of anything from $20 to $50 million a year.
Supposing that a large corporation had large land holdings on which
great stands of beautiful trees existed. Why couldn't legislation
be considered at the Federal level where the corporation had some
way to pay his taxes other than in dollars? Why couldn't some
method be considered by which, when the time comes at the end
of the year to make income tax payment, this concern couldn't
offer 1 0,000 acres of redwoods instead of $ 1 million or $ 1 00 million
or whatever it is that they have to pay to the government? It seems
to me, we have got to tackle these problems at their source, one of
which is the obsolescence of a good bit of this land. A good many
large corporations hold great tracts of land and are trying to
consider ways of using it other than as originally planned.
The second point I want to make is, a scenic road is not a
road, it is a corridor. That corridor is like, to me, a cruise ship.
Once that ship is filled, once the road is filled with the number of
cars that will travel comfortably on it, it should be cut off. It should
not be considered as a transportation program, but as a visual
recreation program. We have got to consider that quite separately
from the freeway program which is quite a different thing and
naturally has to be treated quite differently.
To summarize this, I would like to suggest that one of the big
subjects that we study at the Federal level should be ways and means
of changing our tax base so that if a man is faced with the selling
of his property, he has a choice. Instead of selling it to a redeveloper
for a given price, he should have some way of giving it to the Federal
government or to the State in lieu of taxes.
JOHN AUERBAGH. A question to Mr. Hartzog and if time allows, I
have a question for Dr. Levin. There are 57 million people riding
SCENIC ROADS AND PARKWAYS 229
bicycles in America today. In his natural beauty message last Feb-
ruary, the President saluted this group of outdoor users and said our
doctors recommend it. But he also said they are amongst our
forgotten outdoorsmen and urged that their needs be considered.
He specifically said of this particular group, that they not be
tyrannized off the road by the motorist. The question that I would
like to put to Mr. Hartzog and to Dr. Levin is this :
Are provisions being made for this large group of outdoor users
to enjoy our scenic roads and our National Park System and also
all other scenic points?
Mr. HARTZOG. Indeed, we are providing for them. At Cape Cod,
for example, a full system of bicycle trails has now been laid out.
We have issued instructions to the field design offices that in each
master plan, there shall be considered the potential for developing
bicycle trails as well as hiking trails. So it is definitely a priority
consideration.
Dr. LEVIN. May I say, from the standpoint of the scenic roads
and parkways study, we consider these trails complementary facili-
ties and we have asked the States to designate them in connection
with their nominations for scenic roads and parkways. We have
estimated costs on them.
I might add that for our final report, due sometime this summer,
I have asked some doctors at Health, Education, and Welfare
they are part of the Recreation Advisory Council to work on a chap-
ter on the interrelationship of health, mental health and recreation.
I have every hope that a real good job will be done by HEW on this
subject.
CHARLES E. FRASER. In connection with Mr. Owings' sugges-
tion of gifts to the Federal and State governments, there is a pro-
posal, I believe, that Secretary Udall got through the Internal Rev-
enue Service that gifts of scenic easements to the National Park Serv-
ice or the national government were deductible. No provisions were
made for gifts to State parks or to county park authorities.
Many people would be willing to give scenic easements to private
foundations, the Audubon Society, and others, but not the National
Park Service. Is there any method available for handling that?
Mr. HARTZOG. I am aware of the ruling for the National Park
Service. I think that the wording of this ruling is broad enough in its
230 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
implication to cover the situations that you speak of. Certainly we
are interested in such donations to States and local governments as
well as to civic organizations. Four States now have enacted legis-
lation to permit not only these deductions, but also the assessment of
land encumbered with scenic easements, at lesser rates than those
which are not, for people who have donated scenic easements.
I think there is certainly a direction here and we will be delighted
to follow this up with Internal Revenue to see if it is broad enough.
Mrs. ALBERT LASKER. I am very interested to know if any addi-
tional large supplies of flowering trees and shrubs in nurseries are
provided or are going to be provided on the scenic highways. In
an attempt to try to plant more flowers, trees, and shrubs, I find the
supply is very short. If we are going to make any real impact, I
think we ought to have some long-range planning.
Dr. LEVIN. We have no authority to do anything with this; we
have to go to the Hill and get authorization from the Congress. On
the going highway programs, we are expanding our activities in the
landscape field and I assume that the State highway departments,
as we learned this morning, are doing whatever is necessary to rea-
sonably anticipate this in connection with what they can see on
the horizon.
Senator FARR. I might comment on that. This raises a good
point. The Bureau of Public Roads could give us some help in
urging the State conservation departments to grow more natural
shrubs that could be used on the highways.
Dr. EDGAR WAYBURN. I have a comment and a question. Spe-
cifically, a highway may be charted directly where it should not go.
To zero in on this, I would take the beautiful, majestic 500- to 2,000-
year-old redwoods of northern California. In two places at the pres-
ent time, the State highway department is attempting to put the high-
ways through the State parks, through the trees, rather than go around
them. Both areas have been deemed worthy of national park status
if the Redwood National Park is to be established. A stop has been
put up at Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park at the present time.
But a go signal has been given at Jedediah Smith Redwoods State
Park. A freeway has been routed through the National Tribute
Grove of that park. This is an authorized highway and only this
summer, while we are talking, funds are being sought to actually put
the highway in.
SCENIC ROADS AND PARKWAYS 231
Now, the question is, and I ask the Bureau of Public Roads, can
or will the Federal Government, which puts somewhere between 80
and 90 percent of the funds into such a thing, even though it is al-
ready authorized by the State highway department can the Federal
Government stop such a thing?
Senator FARR. Mr. Hartzog and Dr. Levin. I might put it a dif-
ferent way. What happens if an impasse occurs between a State
highway department and a conservation agency, and particularly
where Federal funds are involved?
Dr. LEVIN. Normally in the Federal aid relationship that Con-
gress has set up, the States initiate a project and the Bureau of Public
Roads reviews it. Of course, the Bureau does review all elements of
it and sometimes there is an honest professional difference of opinion
between the Bureau and the State highway department. When
this takes place there are professional discussions between the two.
In most cases, there is a common understanding and sometimes there
are changes made in the thinking of where a highway should go or
where it shouldn't go.
In connection with the particular controversy you have in mind,
I would rather not get into the specifics of it, but I would say in this
case it is being handled in an appropriate way.
At some point, however, I know you realize that in any kind of
public improvement program, at some point you have got to make
a decision and once a decision is made, then, of course, you have got
to go forward.
Otherwise, you see, we would be on dead center about the high-
ways and we would continue to kill people at a fantastically high
rate. It has been shown that freeways are three or four times as safe
as highways of comparable design that carry comparable traffic
volumes. Every mile of highway that we build of this kind, we will
in the future try to make as beautiful as we can, and reconcile them
with the environment as well as we can. But aside from this every
mile of highway that we build will save American lives. This should
be of great concern to us.
Senator FARR. Where there is a conflict between a conservation
agency and a highway agency, is the controversy decided at the
Federal level?
Dr. LEVIN. In case of a controversy, the State has got to document
its case. If there is a conflict, the State in making its submission, has
232 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
got to indicate to the Bureau its reasons for divergence from the opin-
ion of the conservation agency. This divergence must satisfy the Bu-
reau of Public Roads. If it does not, we will have to disapprove the
project.
Mr. HARTZOG. With respect to the specific area mentioned by the
questioner, Secretary Udall has written the State in connection with
this proposed location expressing the concern of the department.
We work very closely with the BPR in these matters and, as a matter
of fact, Rex Whitton has issued memoranda requiring that the con-
servation agencies be considered on these questions on these inter-
state arguments. I think we are making progress. It is a difficult
area.
Certainly, we recognize that we are going to have these differences.
I have a great deal of confidence in Rex Whitton and his sensitivity
to these problems and I believe that great progress has been made in
the last few years.
Dr. CLARENCE COTTAM. I am wondering if the answer to part of
this last question wouldn't be legislation? For 25 years we had an an-
nual scrap to keep a four-lane highway out of Rock Creek Park. It is
a current proposition. The argument we heard was if you get any
Federal property, why not use it for public purposes? Yet a parkway
would completely defeat the purpose for which those areas are ac-
quired. It seems to me there ought to be some areas out of bounds
for public road development. This could be turned into an eight-
lane highway.
Mr. HARTZOG. I think you are absolutely right. I think this is
one of the things that certainly is involved in this, that park land is
looked on as free land and can be devoted to highways.
Now, we have been talking to the Bureau of Public Roads, par-
ticularly with Mr. Whitton, about this. Because very recently in
St. Louis, and also in Jackson County, Mo., they paid for park land
and it was reimbursed under the Interstate Highway Act. I think
if the true costs of these park lands are taken into account in the
highway rights-of-way, that perhaps we will minimize the impact of
these arguments.
If it is an absolute necessity that the park land be devoted to a
highway purpose, and the highway department is required to replace
this in kind or in cash an equivalent payment of park land I think
you would really begin to get at the root of the problem. The
SCENIC ROADS AND PARKWAYS 233
problem up to this point has been this philosophy, that if it is a park,
it is free, and certainly if it is a park it is open. So it is easy.
Somehow they seem to be able to find a blue pencil that hits that
green spot.
LESLIE H. GOULD. I am not sure whether this is a question to
Senator Farr or Dr. Levin or a comment made for the edification
of the Nevada State highway engineer, Otis Wright.
It is nothing new for two State agencies to undo each other's
work and nothing new for two Federal agencies to undo each other's
work, but in Nevada we have the prospect of four of them getting
together on the job. I mean the Nevada Tahoe State Park. I am
talking about the new park in Nevada, the last piece of natural-look-
ing land around the lakeshore. We have prospects of acquiring
this land sometime during the next few months. It is characterized
by steep rugged cliffs arising from a very shallow, relatively level area
along the lakeshore. A narrow road now makes its own way south
down this relatively level area.
If we get this land, it is going to be partly with matching funds
obtained from Mr. Udall's department. If we get this land there
is going to be more usage of it, and already the people at each end
of the lake are clamoring to have the road widened and Mr. Wright
of the highway department thinks they have something on their side.
On the other hand, if we get this road widened there is not much
sense in our going to the trouble of having a park there because there
isn't room for both the park and a super highway. The State park
system is going to acquire this land almost immediately and almost
immediately the highway department is going to take it over and
build a road in it. We are going to acquire it with partly Federal
money, perhaps up to 50 percent for acquisition and development.
And Mr. Wright is going to use 89 percent of Federal money to
destroy it.
I wonder if this isn't going to be a problem that is going to recur
in many of the projects envisioned under the Conservation Act. I
wonder if something can't be done now to form some kind of policy
that will prevent this kind of dilemma, this kind of problem from
occurring.
JACK B. ROBERTSON. Mr. Chairman, I would recommend that as
a minimum, when you make your report to the President, that you
would recommend at least one demonstration scenic highway in each
State to be authorized. I believe if we can have one stretch of high-
234 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
way in each State constructed to scenic standards or reconstructed to
scenic standards, then the citizens will clamor for more. I think
unless we do this in each State, the scenic highway concept is going
to be a long time coming.
WILLIAM GARNETT. Relative to the method of analyzing the
need for highways, I think we have not yet made comment on
where we stop building highways. I challenge the methods that are
now used in determining this, the quality of analyses being used.
I think we no longer should use only a traffic count to say we need
a better freeway or a better secondary road, and I am particularly
concerned about the secondary roads that should be scenic highways.
I feel that we need more than the traffic count. We need to know
why is the traffic going there, and take that into very careful con-
sideration. , In California there are many traffic count areas destroy-
ing scenic highways and I am sure that a high percentage of the
traffic on that highway is there because of the scenic value. So I
think I would recommend that some careful ecological studies
be incorporated with some possible methods of surveying the
purpose of that traffic.
Mrs. NATHANIEL A. O WINGS. I believe it isn't a question of
whether we have a freeway up the north coast of California. It is
a question of whether the freeway is allowed to bypass the parks. We
are not questioning freeways versus two-lane roads. On the west
coast the freeway has a dual contradictory role. One of its roles
is to take people to the redwood parks, our superb natural beauty
area; whereas on the other hand it intrudes into these public parks,
these redwood groves, and it disturbs, scars, and destroys the very
experience that the traveler comes to enjoy.
Can the Bureau of Public Roads develop rigid regulatory measures
to guard against the using of Federal funds on routes that become
destructive in their nature when they pass through parks and our
most prized natural beauty areas?
Dr. LEVIN. Well, as we indicated a moment ago, I think there are
procedures now in effect which will have a tendency to either
eliminate or certainly minimize the adverse impact of highway
improvement in relation to park lands. The requirement is that
the conservation or park agency having jurisdiction over the park
involved must make a finding as to whether it does or it doesn't
find the highway use compatible with park use.
SCENIC ROADS AND PARKWAYS 235
Frequently, there are instances where the State and the park
people have gotten together nicely on this. Either one or the other
has changed his mind about a former stand. Where the two are
still divergent when it gets to the Bureau, then we all look at the
record very carefully. Because of our increased affluence, because
of things which have generated this conference, we all have be-
come much more aware of doing what you are suggesting. I
think in the future the adverse impacts, inconsistencies, the argu-
ments that we have had will probably be at a minimum at least
I hope they will.
HAROLD GILLIAM. I would like to follow up on what has just been
said and suggested by a number of people. The final decision on
whether the Federally financed freeways should go through parks
rests with the Bureau of Public Roads and I wonder, since the Bureau
of Public Roads is not expert in parks, whether this decision should
not rest with the Federal department which is the expert in parks;
namely, the National Park Service.
I recommend that the National Park Service not only be consulted
on freeways going through parks, but its consent be required when-
ever a Federally financed freeway is going to go through a park of
any kind.
NICHOLAS ROOSEVELT. Does your panel or any other group in-
tend to establish standards for scenic roads? The possibility was
mentioned, but is anything definite going to be done on that?
Senator FARR. On the State level in California the Scenic High-
way Advisory Committee in the month of June will establish
standards.
Mr. ROOSEVELT. I mean on a nationwide basis.
Dr. LEVIN. In connection with our study efforts we have made
an attempt to not only define what we mean by "scenic road" and
"parkway" but we have set up certain criteria to assist the State
agencies, and these have been conservation agencies as well as the
highway agencies, in order to make nominations. We have set up
as many as eight or nine different criteria.
Mr. ROOSEVELT. Are they available to the public?
Dr. LEVIN. I will give you a copy of our manual.
JOHN MACRAE. I wonder if there is any effort to make a national
779-59565 16
236 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
inventory of the important scenic areas and then to establish priori-
ties to be sure those important ones are saved.
Mr. HARTZOG. The Historic Sites Act of 1935 charges the Secre-
tary with the responsibility of developing a national historic land-
mark program and this has now identified more than 500 national
historic landmarks. About two years ago a companion program to
identify natural landmarks was also initiated and approved by the
Bureau of the Budget, is now underway, and 16 have now been
identified. We expect to continue working on this as rapidly as
possible.
I might say also that we have been able, in working with the
Bureau of Public Roads and Urban Renewal Administration, to
identify these in such a way that they will show up when the plans
come in for review. The Urban Renewal and the Bureau of Public
Roads people will know where most of the historic landmarks are
and what they are getting into if they approve that plan.
Mr. MACRAE. Is there an absolute number?
Mr. HARTZOG. There is no absolute number. That's all that we
have been able to do to date. These certificates have just been
awarded by the Secretary. As a matter of fact, all these plaques
have not yet been presented.
WILL SHAW. I would like to address my question to Professor
Lynch, possibly to muddy the waters a little bit because everybody is
talking about freeways in rural parks.
I want to ask you, what is being done with regard to shall we
call them scenic roadways through cities? What progress is being
made in that direction to your knowledge?
Mr. LYNCH. To my knowledge very little progress. Most urban
highways simply take a strip for the highway alone. There is no
excess condemnation beyond the right-of-way. But by using excess
condemnation, you might develop parks and new linear development
integral with the road. There are a few examples today of structures
being placed over roads. Mr. Halprin talks about building struc-
tures under roads. There is a whole new potential here.
ROBERT WENKAM. I merely wanted to add a little comment with
respect to freeways. When a decision is made as to the route of a
freeway I guess we all have to live with it somehow. However, I
understand that about 50 percent of the vast interstate highway
SCENIC ROADS AND PARKWAYS 237
system is still in the planning stage. Some of the corridors being
selected for the unfinished portions of this system will destroy com-
pletely or seriously damage important scenic areas of natural beauty.
It seems to me that it would be appropriate, as part of this Con-
ference on Natural Beauty, that a recommendation come from this
panel to ask that there be reconsideration and a new study of inter-
state corridors now being planned with an increased emphasis on
the aesthetics involved and the effect of the route on scenic areas
before the routes are approved by the Bureau of Public Roads. We
may have lost some areas in the past, but we stand a chance now to
save a great deal from this date on.
I would like to make a personal comment. I sometimes feel that
highway engineers give little more than lip service to aesthetics and,
in this respect, the photographs that are displayed here to me repre-
sent a certain amount of misrepresentation. I like to feel that the
highways should be designed from the point of view of the driver
who is sitting behind the wheel of the car and I would like to see
what these very same highways displayed here so beautifully photo-
graphed a half a mile away, would be like sitting behind the wheel.
As anybody knows in driving across the San Francisco Bay Bridge,
all you see is a mass of steel girders and wires. You can't even
see the bay. I think that if somehow you could get across to the
highway engineer that he should design the scenic routes from an
elevation of about 5 feet above the ground, we will then be progress-
ing a great deal.
Secretary UDALL. I would first like to say I am glad the confer-
ence was introduced to Senator Nelson who is one of the most
effective conservation people in the Congress and a brilliant con-
servation governor. If there were more and more people like him
in public life this would be part of the solution, too. I am sorry he
couldn't stay.
I would like to say for the panel, I think you have an oppor-
tunity, one of the finest of opportunities of any of the panels,
because I know the President would like to be able to recommend,
when Dr. Levin's study is finished, a bold, new program to the
Congress next year. And maybe you should continue your delibera-
tions and not make your report until you have had a look at Dr.
Levin's study and give us and him some extra support for it.
One other statement and I will ask the panel a question. I do
agree fully with the points Senator Nelson made with regard to
238 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
building into all of our road systems, but particularly our scenic
roads and parkways, horseback trails, hiking trails, and bicycle trails.
We could spend an extra 5 percent of money on these roads to in-
corporate these features and make our roads for people. Up to now
we have made them for automobiles and primarily for trucks. Let's
put them in our highway system. But you can't have any conserva-
tion program ultimately unless you have money and this is one of the
big questions. I think that we can find sources of money to get a
modest program started next year and get it going, but what about
1972 when the interstate program is finished? Shouldn't the motor-
ist who is really short-changed, in my judgment, in the present in-
terstate highway program shouldn't the motorist get a bigger chunk
of that money so that we could have an effective Federal-State pro-
gram of scenic roads and highways? What about that, panel?
Mr. MICHAELIAN. I think that's a wonderful idea and I hope
that it can be accomplished. The countryside belongs to the people
and the people should have an opportunity to enjoy what is being
constructed and the manner in which it is being constructed.
One of the points that I tried to bring out, and I hope that we will
take cognizance of it, is that more and more emphasis should be put
on the utilization of all the corridors that we have. We have pipe-
lines that are being used for aqueducts, gasoline transmission, and
oil. We have the railroad roadbeds and they should be utilized to
the fullest extent possible and they should never be allowed to be
split up piecemeal. They should be kept as corridors and, at least,
if we are going to abandon railroads we should use those corridors for
truck routes. I would like to see more and more of the emphasis
placed on revitalizing railroads to carry commercial traffic.
Mr. LYNCH. I would say "amen" and one other thing .
It seems to me if we are to restudy the highway systems we should
not only be rethinking of the aesthetic implications, but social impli-
cations. I know this is beyond what we are supposed to talk about,
but this is one of the critical things our roads are doing to our society.
Senator FARR. I guess you agree with your boss, Mr. Hartzog?
Mr. HARTZOG. Completely.
Dr. LEVIN. I would like to add without dissenting at all, that our
scenic roads study is supposed also to make some findings with respect
to alternative means of financing this program and we are going
SCENIC ROADS AND PARKWAYS 239
to do this. I might also indicate that the highway officials themselves
have recently initiated the so-called "after 1972 studies" and I think
they are aware, Mr. Secretary, of the need to study what is going
to happen after then, too. So we are all pretty much agreed on it.
Senator FARR. One remark in passing. In every study made
by others, and in our own State, we found more people were engaged
in automobile driving than any other type of outdoor recreation
and this was in the year 1963. It goes up each and every year.
With the new leisure, and people wanting to spend more time out
driving their automobiles, they certainly ought to be able to drive on
roads that are pleasing and roads designed for recreation.
The Federal interstate system was designed primarily as a fast
highway system to move great and vast volumes of people and goods
across the country. For the people who want to have recreation we
have got to have greater emphasis on the scenic highways and park-
ways after 1972, when we complete the Federal interstate highway
system. A good portion of that money could be diverted to the very
use Secretary Udall suggested.
Mr. HARTZOG. One thing, Mr. Chairman. I want to emphasize
the point which I think was implicit in what Secretary Udall said
and also what Mr. Lynch was referring to, and that is, real oppor-
tunity to develop scenic roads now, particularly in urban areas in
connection with the interstate highway system. The part of the
interstate highway system that to a large extent has not been
built is in the urban areas. If this is allowed to become just a sterile
addition, scenic roads and parkways are not going to be able to do
very much to uplift it in the years to come. I think the real oppor-
tunity is to apply some of these principles and concepts to this inter-
state system that is now coming into these urban areas. The routes
are now being selected and certainly the money is available to build
a scenic interstate system in the urban environment. This is one of
the things that ought to be highlighted in any observations on this
subject.
Mrs. DOROTHY MOORE. I would like to ask whether any thought
has been given to the fact that some of these other uses may not be
appropriately designed in the same corridor as an automobile high-
way and a scenic highway, in particular, walking trails. Several
people have stressed the fact that the ideal scenic highway should
incorporate bridle paths, walking trails, and so on. I wonder if these
240 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
should not be kept in more remote locations. I am sure Secretary
Udall would see the logic of this, that they should be in areas much
more remote, much more natural. In fact, the scenic highways
should be kept well away from such established trails as the Ap-
palachian Trail, for instance. Yet I have seen proposals for placing
the automobile highway very, very close to an established hiking
and camping trail.
Senator FARR. That's a good question for Dr. Levin and this
committee to take into consideration.
Mrs. MILTON ROEDEL. We are greatly concerned in the urban
areas going up the eastern seaboard, that we will lose our scenic val-
leys. We don't have redwoods, but we do have beautiful stream val-
leys. We can foresee that the scenic highways are going to head right
in to the last precious open green spaces that we have. We think it
might be possible to work this out if we felt we had a voice in setting
up the various criteria at the local level.
We would be interested in working with the highway people. We
feel that our State planning agencies, county and city, ought to be
involved. We would like to see this almost mandatory in order to
use the Federal funds for this kind of program.
Mrs. PEARL CHASE. I have been waiting for mention of several
things which I think pertain to both urban and rural roads, scenic
or general, and that is roadside rests. Roadside services, service sta-
tions, both urban and rural what about the bicycle paths that serve
the universities, the schools, and other agencies which require pedaled
access? I think there are so many different laws, so many different
types of roads, and distances between places, that no standard can
probably be suggested that is universal. We take these matters up in
connection with scenic highways and roads because they certainly are
part of the total picture, particularly the service station.
Dr. KENNETH HUNT. We have acknowledged that highway rights-
of-way so often are bound by costs. I would like to suggest that we
look into legislation, making a very genuine set of criteria for pricing
natural areas, whether they be rural or urban. One criterion would
be density of population surrounding the area, which would help
a great deal in the raising of the value of urban parks.
Another criterion might be the forest type. The National Shade
Tree Conference has a set of scales of worth of trees. I wonder what
that would figure out on redwoods. Of scientific significance are
SCENIC ROADS AND PARKWAYS 241
really primitive natural areas, and I am thinking not only of public
areas, but private lands the extent to which they have ecological
research value or educational value. If we could set up criteria for
rating lands by law, then it might be simply the competition the
market price of some of these properties would cause other routes
to be selected.
Statements Submitted for the Record
LAURENCE J. AURBACH. I would like to address a remark to
the comment made by Mr. Owings regarding possible tax legislation
to encourage gifts of property to State and local governments for
open space purposes. Federal tax incentives are one very positive
means to secure open space land for State and local governments.
However, even under existing tax law, there are substantial tax bene-
fits in donating property for local open space purposes.
The County of Santa Clara has a particularly aggressive and for-
ward-looking open space program. The taxpayers have voted bonds
for the acquisition of park lands. We have published a leaflet which
explains the tax advantages of donating such property to the county
under the present state of the law.
This brochure explains the charitable deduction that is available
to those who give property to local governments. The new charitable
deduction carryover is similarly available to those who participate
in a county's open space program. In addition to the charitable
deduction, a donor would save the tax he would otherwise have to
pay on the profit he made from the sale. The brochure also explains
how to make a bargain sale of property, i.e., the sale of the property
to the county for the cost to the individual. A donor who grants a
scenic easement, but retains the fee interest in the property would
retain the right to use the property and take a charitable deduction.
The possibility of reserving a life estate for a gift is also explained,
as well as the tax advantages of making a gift during life, rather
than by will.
Tax incentives to promote gifts of land to public agencies are
important; it is equally important for the public to understand
the status of law so they can both participate in local government
programs and take advantage of the maximum deduction that is
permitted to them by law.
VALLEAU C. CURTIS. In reply to Mrs. Albert Lasker of New York
242 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
City who asked whether anything was being done relative to re-
searching the availability of plant materials in short supply :
There is in the Northeast an organization known as the Landscape
Materials Information Service, composed of a nonprofit group of
landscape architects, landscape contractors, public agencies, and
nurserymen.
This organization publishes an inventory report from the leading
nurseries of the Northeast twice a year.
They also compile an aggregate report from the principal public
agencies of their plant requirements for a year ahead.
This organization has a membership of about 250 from New
England, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Del-
aware, and Ohio.
STANLEY A. MURRAY. I would like to add to Senator Nelson's
remarks concerning trails in relation to natural beauty. Trails offer
a most intimate means for the observance and appreciation of natural
beauty, and a well-developed and maintained trail system provides
justification for the preservation of specific areas in a forested or other-
wise natural state.
The 2,000-mile Appalachian Trail, with its numerous side trails,
is probably the best-known example of a truly extensive trail system.
It represents a model of cooperation between private individuals and
groups and Federal and State agencies. For over 40 years this primi-
tive foot trail has been kept cleared, marked, and open to the public
by the coordinated efforts of thousands of volunteers. The U.S.
Forest Service, National Park Service, numerous State parks and one
chamber of commerce have cooperated in the upkeep and preserva-
tion of designated sections.
An estimated 50 million people live within a 3-hour drive of
the Appalachian Trail, and half the population of the United States
lives within a day's journey. It provides an outdoor recreation expe-
rience of the highest quality for many thousands annually. Its use
is expected to grow manifold as more people seek the solitude and
restful atmosphere of remote areas. It will undoubtedly be necessary
to construct and maintain parallel and cross trails in the heavily used
areas.
The need for a protected area of sufficient width to protect ade-
quately the natural character of the trail is apparent. Such an area
is termed the Appalachian Trailway and is defined more precisely in
U.S. Senate Bill 622, introduced by Senator Nelson and cosponsored
SCENIC ROADS AND PARKWAYS 243
by 17 Senators representing nearly every Appalachian Trail State.
In the national parks and forests, we are talking about one mile on
either side of the trail, as this width has been so protected there for
27 years. In more developed regions, the trailway will have to be
somewhat narrower. Multiple-use activities are permissible, with
some restrictions,
It is important that the Appalachian Trail purposely be kept
remote and wild, for remoteness and wildness a primeval en-
vironment constitute its prime asset. New highway crossings should
be kept at a minimum compatible with other needs. Attractive
crossings of all highways should be provided. Special attention
should be given to the preservation of springs and other natural
sources of drinking water.
Scenic parkways that would parallel the Appalachian Trail should
be located on separate ridges of land from the trail, so that the
primitive or wilderness environment will not be broken by the
sights and sounds of the moving automobile. We ask this White
House Conference on Natural Beauty to recommend that the Scenic
Roads and Parkways Study currently being prepared stipulate that
mountain parkways be located outside the proposed Appalachian
Trailway zone.
The suggestions enumerated here are vital to the preservation of
this tremendous outdoor recreation resource.
ANN SATTERTHWAITE. Before a massive new construction pro-
gram for scenic roads and parkways is launched, I think the follow-
ing factors should be investigated :
1 . Analysis of the demand for driving for pleasure. The current
scenic road study and much of the interest in scenic roads is based
on the finding of the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Com-
mission that driving for pleasure is the most popular outdoor rec-
reation activity. There has been no analysis of this demand.
Are people on the road to escape from mother-in-law back home,
or are they just driving for lack of anything better to do? Or, are
people on the road for some positive reason like going to a recrea-
tion site or just to pick up a bottle of milk at the Seven-Eleven? Is
driving considered a positive recreation activity by itself?
Whatever the finding, I would suspect that an analysis of the de-
mand for driving for pleasure will have a bearing on how to meet
this demand. It may be that recreation facilities closer to home, that
better publicized recreation programs, or even better public trans-
244 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
portation would take care of some of this market for driving for
pleasure.
In any case, let's know what we are doing and whom we are
serving before we forge new and expensive roads through our open
lands, which are certainly limited in the metropolitan areas.
2. Role of parkways. Driving should be made as pleasurable as
possible. Roads should be as scenic as possible, both through their
location and design treatment. However, that does not necessarily
mean that roads should be parks or in parks. Providing roads to
make parks accessible is one thing, but winding roads through parks
especially linear streambank parks, found in so many metropolitan
areas, is another thing. Many stream and riverbank parks with
roadways near the water cannot be used for anything other than
moving cars. This, unfortunately, is especially true in large cities
where the recreation supply is most limited.
Certainly the role of the parkways needs to be restudied. The best
use of some of our choice recreation sites especially in or near
metropolitan areas may not be roadways. Roadways, be they
freeways with fast-moving, mixed traffic or parkways with slow-
moving noncommercial traffic, are still essentially moving people.
Is moving at 35 m.p.h. through recreational areas the best way to
use those areas or the best way to appreciate those areas?
MAX M. THARP. Bicycle and hiking trails are important to many
people. With only limited additional cost, cross-country and local
bicycle and hiking trails could be provided on many of the highways
already built or authorized. The rights-of-way are generally wide
enough for these trails, and with the limited access highways
grade or road crossings would not be a hazard. Such trails would
be of particular value near the cities and through the rural-urban
fringes into the open country.
Tying a system of bicycle and hiking trails into our regular high-
way network and our scenic roads and parkways would open up
the possibility for expanding our youth hostel program similar to that
in Europe. Hostels should provide overnight facilities and most of
them could be located in scenic rural sections of recreational sig-
nificance. The hostels should be close enough together so that hostel-
ers could take hiking or bicycling trips, spending each night in a
different hostel. Providing highway-oriented bicycle and hiking
trails would encourage our citizens and foreign visitors to take time
SCENIC ROADS AND PARKWAYS 245
to see our country and to enjoy its scenic attractions, natural beauty,
and points of cultural and historical significance.
Col. J. LESTER WHITE. The Mississippi River Parkway Commis-
sion with the cooperation of the National Park Service and the U.S.
Bureau of Public Roads, sponsored and brought into being the
longest parkway in the world, namely, the Great River Road. This
twin parkway, both sides of the Mississippi River and generally
parallel thereto, is 5,600 miles long and extends from Canada to
the Gulf. It is the only international parkway as it includes two
Canadian provinces where the Great River Road encircles the Lake
of the Woods.
The Great River Road, through the heartland of North America,
serves upwards of 50 million people (1960 census) plus the millions
of tourists who come to the beautiful Mississippi Valley.
The Commission commends President Johnson for his message
on a beautiful America, which has been the objective of the Com-
mission since 1938, for the 1 Mississippi Valley States.
My questions are directed to panelist Senator Nelson, of Wiscon-
sin, as follows :
Will the impetus and the impact of this great Conference result in
sufficient Federal legislation to complete scenic easement purchases
and general roadside beautification of the Great River Road project?
Should separate bills be continued to be submitted for the respec-
tive parkways? You will remember for example, Senator Nelson,
the Senate hearing directed by you May 22, 1964, Senate Subcom-
mittee on Public Roads on the Humphrey Bill, S. 1672. Despite
favorable comment thereon no action was taken because of the
impending over-all scenic parkway study.
Will sufficient State and Federal funds be forthcoming (and
when?) for the Great River Road now in existence, marked with
the Great River Road emblem and traveled throughout its entire
length?
Such funds are needed for the purchase of scenic easements, de-
velopment of roadside parks and rest areas, the restoration of his-
toric sites and general beautification.
Only by traveling the Great River Road along the mighty Missis-
sippi can its beauties be fully realized and appreciated.
NORMAN WILLIAMS, JR. Some of the discussion in this panel
exhibited the familiar tendency to regard zoning as a catch-all and
246 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
cure-all. Moreover, some of this was concerned with zoning, and
some with nonzoning police-power controls.
The use of zoning to promote conservation and open space in this
country is relatively unexplored. Moreover, this should be recog-
nized as a special case of one of the major problems in implementing
American planning how to define the proper outer boundaries of
police-power controls.
This is an area where zoning can play a major role but within
limits. For obviously not all open land can in fact be used for more
intensive development. In many instances some land is clearly more
suitable for some such development, and other land is suitable only
for (or at least more suitable for), less intensive open uses. Since
differential treatment is appropriate in such situations, zoning is
the proper way to implement public policy as long as the distinc-
tions made are documented by the necessary technical work. Yet
any such scheme must keep in mind a prevailing assumption in
American constitutional law (and public policy) : any private land-
owner who decides to insist upon having some economic return
from his land is entitled to have it, either right away or at some
not-too-distant time; and preferably he should have at least some
reasonable choice of appropriate uses. (See for example Vernon
Park Realty v. Mount Vernon, 307 New York 493, 121 North East-
ern 2d 517 (1954) ; Morris County Land Improvement v. Parsip-
pany-Troy Hills, 40 New Jersey 539, 193 Atlantic 2d 232 (1963).)
The landowner, after all, is paying taxes on the land; and if the com-
munity wants to restrict his rights further, it can always do so and
pay for it. In American planning controls, one of the next major
jobs is then to redefine how far police-power controls can properly go,
in various situations such as this and, conversely, in what situations
some form of compensation should be used to supplement or to super-
sede police-power controls. (Tax exemption, various kinds of sub-
sidies, purchase of a scenic easement or various development rights
there are many possibilities.) In approaching this problem, a clear
distinction should be made between those current (or proposed) con-
trols providing clear public benefits, and those situations where one
set of local taxpayers seek to cast a heavy burden on one taxpayer,
for no very good reason.
In areas of rapid residential growth, as for example at the outer
suburban fringe, the best way to approach this problem is from the
other end, i.e., by regulating such growth. If a community can (a)
SCENIC ROADS AND PARKWAYS 247
define the most appropriate areas for its future growth, and ( b ) regu-
late the location and the sequence of residential subdivisions, then
that community is in a good position to do two further things. First,
it can exercise some rational control over its rate of growth, and so
over the increasing cost of new services. Second, having provided
areas for growth, then and only then can it define appropriate
areas for permanent open space. The first is a prime concern in most
growing communities, but the techniques used have generally been
clumsy. (See Albrecht Realty Co. v. New Castle, 8 New York Mis-
cellaneous 2d 255, 167 New York Supplement 2d 843 (1957).)
Acreage zoning is often misused for this purpose, apparently usually
unsuccessfully.
Under a more rational approach, subdivision control could be
used explicitly for this purpose, or a special zoning scheme devised.
A recent detailed review of a well-known scheme in Clarkstown,
Rockland County, N.Y., indicated that it worked reasonably well.
(Upheld in Josephs v. Clarkstown, 24 New York Miscellaneous 2d
366, 198 New York Supplement 2d 695 (1960). I was the legal
draftsman of this ordinance. )
A different kind of problem arises in very rural areas. As noted in
the same panel, land needed and used for cropland is shrinking in
many areas; and so abandoned land is on the increase. So far as
I know, no one has focused attention on the appropriate proper
future use for such abandoned land. If nothing is done, such land
will gradually revert to brush and choke-cherry, at least for a long
transitional period; and there will be a clear and present danger of
cheap commercial development scattering all over the place. Neither
will add much to natural beauty. Zoning is unlikely to work in this
situation, in the absence of a sensible and realistic land-use policy.
JAMES W. WILSON. In our preoccupation with large-scale scenic
road and parkway projects, let us not forget the potential in things
as small and simple as flowers from seeds.
The green of trees, shrubs, and grass is pleasing and restful but
the eye delights in occasional spots of color that relieve the green
landscape.
Scenic roads and parkways offer many sites for planting large
drifts of flowers which will reseed and become naturalized. Turn-
outs, meadows, road cuts which are too steep or too rocky to mow,
rest stops, campsites, stream banks, and fence rows are a few ob-
vious choices.
248 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
Flower seeds give civic groups and children a way to participate
in the planting of scenic roads. The creation of beauty for the
enjoyment of others will surely sharpen one's own appreciation of it.
Once a road is dedicated as a scenic route, many people will de-
sire to add to its inherent beauty. What better way could there be
than for highway landscape architects to designate certain areas for
the planting of flower seeds?
Only a few flowers from seed are adapted to naturalizing. In-
cluded are: Annual Poppy, California Native Flower Mixtures,
California Poppy, Calliopsis and Coreopsis, Clarkia, Columbine (in
partially shaded areas and on rocky slopes), Cosmos, Gaillardia
(along the edges of woods bordering meadows), Hollyhock (along
fence rows) , Linaria, Lupin, Phlox, Shasta Daisy, and Sweet Alyssum.
These are not "formal looking" flowers. They would blend into
the landscape as "naturally as a deer in a forest," to borrow a descrip-
tive phrase from a conference speaker.
Most of the flowers listed set prodigious quantities of seeds. Cal-
liopsis, Coreopsis, and Cosmos seed heads are avidly sought by such
valued birds as goldfinches, chickadees, song sparrows, and meadow-
larks. The social birds attracted to the roadside by flower heads
filled with seeds would add the dimension of movement and song
to landscapes along scenic highways.
Patches of flowers serve to slow traffic, to draw automobiles into
turnouts, and to draw passengers out into the fields. This is in
harmony with one of the purposes of scenic roads and parkways
to give citizens a pleasant environment for leisurely driving and
relaxation.
Many civic groups, youth organizations and conservation clubs
have for years successfully planted seeds along highways and byways.
Fine stands of flowers have been reestablished where they had been
wiped out by erosion, overgrazing, or fire.
Out of my experience with these groups, I would be happy to
offer (at no obligation) advice on establishing stands of roadside
flowers from seeds, including how to incorporate flower seeds into
grass seed mixtures for road cuts and shoulders that are not to
be mowed. I can also help you locate specialty seedsmen who offer
unusual seed-grown flowers for difficult soil or microclimate condi-
tions.
CHAPTER 10
ROADSIDE CONTROL
10:15 a.m., Tuesday, May 25
The Chairman, Mr. IVES. Gathered with me here today as fellow
panelists are a group of citizens, distinguished in their specialized
lines of endeavor: industry representatives, conservationists, and
Federal and State officials, who are combining their talents to assist
the President of the United States in his program on natural beauty
with firm recommendations for its implementation.
Since the problems confronting the Nation are fairly well known
to all of us as they pertain to roadside control, the panel will spend
a minimum of time on the diagnosis and a maximum on recom-
mendations. Thus, we hope to be identified as an action oriented
panel.
Some of the features that will be discussed are : ( 1 ) encumbrances
on the right-of-way; (2) junkyards and borrow pits; (3) litter;
(4) landscaping; (5) erosion control; and (6) acquisition of scenic
strips along the right-of-way.
As most of you know, the normal problems of roadside control
are the responsibilities of the various State highway departments with
active operations in this field being the responsibility of the depart-
ment's landscape engineers and architects.
Roadside development is also of considerable concern to the
Bureau of Public Roads and the Department of Commerce. Like-
wise it is of concern to the American Association of State Highway
Officials and the Highway Research Board, each of which has an
operating committee on roadside development.
Anyone and everyone who uses our highways has a big stake in
roadside control businessman, tourist, garden club devotee, and the
housewife on her way to shop. All of us have a right to expect that
our highways will be safe, well maintained, and pleasant to look at
Members of the Panel on Roadside Control were Lowell K. Brid-
well, Mrs. Cyril G. Fox, Howard S. Ives (Chairman), Mrs. Jack
Mamie, Senator Maurine B. Neuberger, David Shepard, Erling Sol-
berg, and Philip Tocker. Staff Associate was Marion A. Hornbeck.
249
250 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
and that they offer no incurable unsightlinesses. The question is,
can it be possible to have and to keep all these things? The Presi-
dent of our great land thinks so we think so and that is why we
are here.
We hope in this panel to emphasize some of the problems through
discussion by panel members and audience participation, and as a
result of the conclusions reached, present recommendations to the
President for final implementation of his plan to re-create and pre-
serve for posterity America's great heritage, its natural beauty.
A large order, perhaps, but this is a larger and faster world than
ever before, and there is no time to dawdle on matters so long
neglected.
Mrs. Fox. Beauty loves all, and I know that we are all, as the
roadside councils have long been, against sin. So we will start from
there.
I was going to give a short review of what we have learned by
experience in Pennsylvania, but what is past is prologue. I think
those of us who have listened in on these wonderful conferences for
the past two days and those of us who have read through reams of
homework in practically every mail are well aware of what is needed
and what we should be doing. But our question, as I see it, is how
and primarily when. So this morning, I am going to confine my re-
marks to four prime subjects with respect to which I feel I can speak
from experience. I believe my remarks will reflect the consensus of
all roadside councillors throughout America, including Hawaii.
Hawaii, of course, is the veteran they have been working on it there
for, I am told, 50 years. We have been working for 30 years in
Pennsylvania while California has been at it for almost 40 years.
This is old hat to those of us who have been working in the vine-
yard through the years giving our all, as dedicated beauty lovers.
Out of this experience comes this brief survey of what we feel is
needed from the government to implement a program of control,
to reclaim the highways that our tax money has paid for and to pro-
tect them for the future and not keep on making the same grievous
mistakes that have been made in the past.
First and foremost, I would like to refer to the need for a national
clearinghouse for information and help for all State roadside coun-
cils. We had such an organization once which was responsible for
all the rest of us being organized and starting out on the right foot.
This was the pioneering of Mrs. Elizabeth Lawton who, you may
ROADSIDE CONTROL 251
remember, was the first one to alert this country on what was happen-
ing to its highways. We learned our ABC's from Mrs. Lawton, but
unfortunately she died in 1954. We have been at a loss to replace
her, and we have not had a national clearinghouse for information
and help since. It is desperately needed.
In order to bring such a clearinghouse into being, naturally, we
need to have it properly financed. The original one was financed
by a foundation I suppose it was before the days when the tax
issue loomed so prominently, but that is the second big must we
need to have our work reclassified as educational. It definitely is
this; we are not just a group of starry-eyed billboard fighters. The
roadside problem must be treated as a whole. We know that there
are other problems along the highways besides just commercial out-
door advertising.
In order for roadside councils to operate effectively, we need to
have a tax ruling which would encourage foundations and indi-
viduals with extra money and they seem to have plenty of it still
to help us in establishing a clearinghouse for information.
Unfortunately, our opposition has been able to write off the mil-
lions and millions of dollars spent in fighting what we are trying to
do. They have been permitted to lobby, to publish ambitious look-
ing, so-called educational materials on what philanthropists they are
by donation of billboard space, and they have been able to charge it
off as a business expense, while we have had to scrounge for stamp
money. We have no paid people. We are just volunteers trying to
fight for the beauty of our country.
Thirdly, we need a citizens' advisory council, and not just an
advisory council comprised of interested groups. We need to estab-
lish a citizens' council comprised of the leaders of our State roadside
councils. They are the ones that have been doing the work. They
know the answers. They should have their right to advise at the top.
Whether they report direct to the President is something to be
determined.
Fourth, and last, the existing Federal legislation must be amended
to remove the areas excepted from control which, as we all know,
constitute areas where outdoor advertising can flood the landscape.
We must make billboard control mandatory on the States. We must
prohibit off-premise commercial advertising and outdoor advertising,
per se, must be confined within areas zoned as industrial and
commercial.
779-59565 17
252 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
You will hear later that they must be permitted in any known busi-
ness area. Well, that has been the roadblock for 50 years, because
they interpret that to mean that any hamburger stand, any farmer's
stand selling his farm products as representing a business area.
So that is our fourth need for State roadside councils.
Mr. TOGKER. As our chairman has stated, I appear here and have
been invited in the capacity as Chairman of the Board of Directors
of the Outdoor Advertising Association of America.
This Association represents over 600 members that operate in some
15,000 markets throughout the United States. I think I will have
for you what I hope you will consider an agreeable surprise.
As to the position taken by our Board of Directors and which I
have been instructed to communicate to this group, that board is
comprised of representatives from every State in the Union. I should
ask you to consider the fact that we have not been entirely impervious
all these years to the requirements of scenic beauty. Over two years
ago our association, desiring to cooperate in the manner that we felt
good citizens should, set up a committee and requested prominent
citizens to help us determine what was a scenic area that was not
officially designated as such so that we ourselves could seek legis-
lation in the various States restricting our right to maintain and erect
structures. Those citizens were the State Highway Commissioner of
Texas, a planning consultant, a lawyer, and the chairman of public
affairs of the General Federation of Women's Clubs.
Frankly, those people could not come up with a definition that
they felt we could incorporate into our law. However that may
be, I think there are things that should be determined by this con-
ference what are we talking about when we talk about a bill-
board? I have seen photographs in newspapers I have one in
mind by the Washington Post labeled "41,000 Miles of Bill-
board" and there wasn't a single billboard in the photograph.
Not too long ago, an item appeared in the California newspaper
quoting Governor Brown as condemning ugly and willy-nilly adver-
tising billboards.
One of our representatives wrote Governor Brown and asked him
what he was talking about. I read from his reply
I am afraid that I was either misquoted or you did not read the
statement correctly. What I said was, that the sizes of the billboards
ROADSIDE CONTROL 253
on the highways were uniform and well spaced. I was complaining
about the little ones which, without rhyme or reason, are all over
used car lots and real estate offices in the beautiful countryside of
Sacramento County. I don't think you have anything to do with
these. But you really should try to help me get rid of them.
Well, I urge that all of you, when you discuss billboards and
condemn them, make clear what you are talking about. Are you
talking about business identification signs or are you talking about
other structures or are you talking about both? But make it clear.
Finally, I heard Secretary Udall this morning refer to bull-
dozing for building highways. There also can be a bulldozing
approach to natural beauty. I have before me from the New York
Herald Tribune, the Sunday edition, May 23, an article that should
give some cause for thought. Petroleum marketers were told last
week that most traveling motorists apparently have some preferences
that conflict with beautification standards set for the interstate high-
way system. A recent survey indicates most traveling motorists
would prefer more gasoline and service stations along the State
highway system than the national standards allow.
Results of the survey conducted in California, Oregon, Wash-
ington and Arizona by the Western Oil & Gas Association disclosed
that 80 to 81 percent of the 3,516 traveling motorists interviewed
thought each State should permit service stations to have highway
informational or advertising signs. The suggested distance between
the advertising sign and the service was most often within a range
of two miles or less. Nearly half of those who thought highway signs
were the best method for alerting motorists also favored more than
one sign per station. About 92 percent favored signs identifying
gasoline by brand.
Well, I would suggest that when you consider this beautification
you give some thought to the interest of the traveling motorist.
Now, despite all this, we are not insensitive to the times and I would
like at this time to read a statement that I have been instructed to
issue on behalf of the Board of Directors of the Outdoor Advertis-
ing Association of America.
I will conclude on that statement.
In future generations, among the notable achievements of the
Johnson administration will be the awareness the President and the
254 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
First Lady have created among Americans everywhere of the need
to beautify our country.
The standardized outdoor advertising industry can play an impor-
tant role in the President's beautification program through the loca-
tion, relocation or, in certain areas, the removal of its structures. It
is entirely consistent to preserve this important medium of commer-
cial communication and at the same time to develop a more beauti-
ful America.
The American countryside in the last half of this century should
properly be preserved for the enjoyment of all Americans. Bill-
boards have no place in the scenic areas of our highways. Cities and
towns, too, in the last half of the 20th century should and must be
places of beauty. They must also be vital and productive for a grow-
ing America. Within this framework, outdoor advertising as a serv-
ice business stands as a vehicle to communicate commercial and
public service messages in the interest of the public as well as the
American business system. Outdoor advertising will, in the future,
relate to the environment of the community, and we will support
legislation and engage in a voluntary effort to meet these ends.
Outdoor Advertising Association of America, representing the
standardized outdoor advertising medium, pledges its enthusiastic
and aggressive support of legislation embodying the following prin-
ciples in furtherance of President Johnson's beautification program :
1 . We will restrict our outdoor advertising structures to those areas
zoned for business and industry or predominantly used for business
and industry.
2. We will remove outdoor advertising structures from areas other
than those zoned or used for business or industry in accordance with
equitable and appropriate regulations.
3. We will assign priority to the removal of structures in relation
to the importance this may bear to the improvement of scenic views.
4. Regardless of zoning, or business use, we will voluntarily re-
frain from building structures in locations which may interfere with
scenic or historic areas.
This is what we propose to the President of the United States.
Senator NEUBERGER. I am glad to hear through the words of Mr.
Tocker that the Outdoor Advertising Association is going to some-
what emulate the American Medical Association. After years of
opposing control of billboards as the AMA did Medicare programs,
they have finally and reluctantly been dragged in.
ROADSIDE CONTROL 255
I am reminded a little bit of one of the recreation activities that we
used to have in Portland, Oreg., which was to take young people down
to the Union Station to see the trains pull out for Chicago. Great,
yellow-painted Union Pacific diesel engines would be there, and
it was great excitement to see them pull out. One time a little boy
had his hand on the engine as the wheels slowly began to move and
as it pulled out of the station, he said, "Whee, daddy, I pushed it."
For some time it has been a spring ritual, like the swallows return-
ing to Capistrano, for Senator John Sherman Cooper of Kentucky
and me when we met, maybe, at a party or on the little tram going
over to the Senate to discuss reintroducing our billboard bill. He
would say to me, or I would say to him: "getting time to think
about reintroducing the billboard control bill" and that time is
with us again.
We have legislated piecemeal by offering a carrot instead of a
stick to induce States to come into the billboard control orbit.
Now, with the present law expiring in June of this year, Senator
Cooper and I and other members of the Congress are tired of this
method of legislating, and with the help of the President of the
United States, and, I gather, with the Outdoor Advertising Associa-
tion and many other groups, we are about to introduce a bill which
has no more of this hanky panky. I hope this bill says from now
on out: "If you want any money from the Federal Government
for your interstate highway system, control those billboards." That's
what we are going to work for.
I have heard this old story about self-policing by various industries
for all of my legislative life, which goes back only to 1950. It doesn't
work, my friends, until there is a law or the threat of a law or the
threat of activity from big pressure groups. This time I hope it is
the public. These people don't police themselves. They don't re-
move billboards. They don't control them. But when they see that
we mean business, then of course they want to come around.
Now, let me tell you of my experience in the Oregon legislature.
We are proud of the scenic beauty of our State. As you are going to
hear from the distinguished lady from Hawaii, we know about Switz-
erland, we know of many other scenic areas where the people take a
great deal of pride in conserving. So we attempted to set up bill-
board control in scenic area preservation activities in the State of
Oregon. Who was there to be lobbying against it with all its might
and money and strength? The billboard industry the Outdoor
256 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
Advertising Association. And what was the motto and the theme
and the cry of their lobbyist to us? Why, these highways are not just
confined to the limits of one State, this is a national problem. (This
was before the interstate highway system was set up, but it was
being anticipated.) Let's make this a national beautification pro-
gram. They helped to defeat the legislation.
Well, it wasn't very long, just a matter of four years, until I found
myself living in Washington, D.C., where my husband was a mem-
ber of the Senate. And I used to sit in regularly on the highway
department hearings and lo and behold, my old friend, the lobbyist
from Salem, Oreg., was there and what was he saying? This is not
a national problem ; this is an individual State problem.
Well, we are a little more sophisticated about it now. But let me
tell you that self -policing doesn't work. You've got to have a law !
What has the Federal Government attempted to do? It has at-
tempted to coax, by offering the bonus. Twenty States out of 50,
have passed legislation to conform to the Federal law and the De-
partment of Commerce standards. But how much money has been
paid out because people were willing to conform or control? Less
than half a million dollars about $450,000 along all these miles of
interstate highways. Why? Because they haven't been able to
control billboards in most cases.
In fact, the fault of the present law and restriction is that it only
applies to rights-of-way that were acquired since July 1, 1956. In
many places, the new highway, of course, was built along existing
rights-of-way and this is where we have been hamstrung even
though we have been conforming with the Department of Com-
merce standards. It is because we used our existing rights-of-way.
I think that the law simply has to be changed to make this much
more effective. I enjoyed the comments of Mrs. Fox about the tax
deductible item which has proliferated some of the worst abuses
along the highway.
Let me come back to Oregon once more to show you an example
of what can be done.
Just a short time ago I was in Oregon and traveled over a new
freeway through our city. It is depressed and, therefore, runs under
existing streets. This necessitated a lot of banks. It is very new;
it has been open only a very short time, and yet those banks are
beautifully planted with azaleas and scotch broom. It is pretty
now, but you can foresee what it is going to be. Of course, we are
ROADSIDE CONTROL 257
unique because you can't stop things from growing there. But I am
concerned with more than billboards. I am concerned with plant-
ing and beautification. But as a member of the U.S. Senate, I am
going to do everything I can, and I need your help, to see that this
scourge of billboards along our highways is done away with.
Mrs. MARNIE. There are no commercial billboards in Hawaii.
The absence of billboards and the opposition to them is a publicly
accepted island tradition and custom. Visitors are impressed and
many inquire how this was accomplished.
This enviable position has only been attained and maintained
through the support of civic-minded citizens, businessmen, local
newspapers, responsible government officials, and through the hard
work and constant vigilance of the Outdoor Circle.
The Outdoor Circle is a 50-year-old women's organization dedi-
cated to the preservation and enhancement of Hawaii's natural
beauty. This group of dedicated volunteers promotes a broad pro-
gram of city beautification. Today, Hawaii is reaping the benefits
of the early work of this group of women.
One of the projects undertaken by the Outdoor Circle, in 1913,
was to rid the city of billboards completely. It is difficult to
visualize that billboards formerly disfigured the highways of Hono-
lulu, the slopes of Diamond Head, the slopes of Punchbowl, which
today is the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, and, even
the famous scenic site, Nuuanu Pali.
The elimination of billboards in Hawaii is part of our State's his-
tory. More than 14 years of hard, uphill work were required to
convince local and mainland merchants that billboards were not
going to permanently deface the landscape of Hawaii. The final
outcome was that members of the Outdoor Circle bought out the
local billboard company with money which they raised these
women owned a business which they promptly scrapped.
The only real weapon the Circle had was the overwhelming sup-
port of public opinion.
Alert to the need of legislative control, the Outdoor Circle, in 1927,
proposed a bill regulating billboards. That bill passed both houses
of the legislature and was signed by the governor.
A major part of the Circle's efforts in promoting city beautifi-
cation has been devoted to sign control. The Honolulu city and
county sign ordinance was the joint endeavor of the city, the
Outdoor Circle, the Honolulu Chamber of Commerce, Honolulu
258 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
architects, and the sign manufacturers. Today, all counties have
similar ordinances governing the size, placement, and construction
of signs relating to businesses conducted on the premises.
Hawaii had no difficulty, in 1961, in qualifying for Federal funds
for prohibiting billboards adjacent to the Interstate and Defense
Highway.
Recently, the Circle appealed to Gov. John A. Burns to update
the existing statutes relating to outdoor advertising. As a result,
identical bills were introduced in the 1965 legislature as an adminis-
tration bill. The proposed bill covers all outdoor advertising de-
vices . . . and establishes the principle that advertising of any
activity is allowed only on the premises where that activity is car-
ried on. Signs continue to be subject to regulation by the counties.
This proposed bill is now in a joint conference committee, having
passed both houses of the legislature. Committee reports stated that,
with the bill's passage, the public welfare and public interest will be
better served, and the natural beauty of the State better preserved
. . . that benefits can be expected for the State in the scenic roads
and parkways program. The only real controversy is the political
poster provision. With the current problems of reapportionment,
the State legislature is presently recessed. When it reconvenes, we
are hopeful that the Outdoor Advertising bill will be enacted.
I would not want to give the impression that Hawaii is without
sign problems. The work of sign control is continuous. The Hono-
lulu City and County Sign Ordinance is presently being challenged
through the deliberate erection of illegal signs.
Our organization devotes a great deal of time to answering corre-
spondence from many groups national and international seeking
information on billboard control and all phases of city beautification.
It is evident that a national clearinghouse for the countless organiza-
tions interested in promoting the preservation of natural beauty is
definitely needed.
No one can say it better than Grady Clay, editor of Landscape
Architecture Quarterly. In his editorial in the July 1962 edition,
he states :
We have much to build upon, a host of existing groups with com-
mon interest in improvement. . . . They need a clearinghouse; a
reference center; a source of guidance, advice, and help. Thus, they
can rise above local partisanship, remain above self-seekers, overcome
ROADSIDE CONTROL 259
public apathy, fight uglification, and help create a more beautiful
America.
ERLING D. SOLBERG. Roadside zoning regulations may be applied
by local and State governments and perhaps by Federal agencies.
Regulations may include use, setback, building height, design, and
other regulations needed to attain desired objectives.
Roadside zoning at local levels is often ineffective. Local govern-
ments are badly fragmented but the roads go through. Regulations
are ineffective, due to local pressures. Zoning is not retroactive and
cannot correct mistakes that occur before zoning. Zoning powers
are permissive rather than mandatory. Many local governments
fail to zone. Although three-fourths of our 3,000 counties have
zoning powers, less than 450 have zoned. Also, only about 10 per-
cent of the Nation's 17,000 organized towns or townships have
zoned.
Zoning regulations are applied directly by nearly a dozen States,
usually for local areas. Zoning regulations, applied either by the
State legislature or by selected State agencies, are found in Florida,
Kansas, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and
Hawaii, among other States.
Hawaii empowers and directs a State land use commission to
place all land in the islands in one or another of four kinds of zoning
districts agricultural, conservation, rural, and urban. Counties
may apply additional zoning regulations in all districts except con-
servation, but their regulations must not conflict with those applied
by the State zoning ordinance.
Direct zoning by the State occurs where State interests are directly
affected by local land use, major zoning benefits are nonlocal, a State
agency benefits materially, or local zoning is ineffective.
Among recent Federal promptings of local zoning are a 1964 act,
which empowers the Secretary of the Interior to withhold sale of
certain lands pending adoption of suitable local zoning ordinances,
and two bills, H.R. 797 and S. 897, 89th Congress, 1st session, which
respectively propose creation of a national recreational area in Trinity
County, Calif., and Saint Croix National Scenic Waterway in Minne-
sota and Wisconsin. Both bills propose suspension of eminent do-
main powers so long as an applicable local zoning ordinance,
approved by the Federal administrator, is in force. But such sus-
pension shall cease if any property is subjected to a zoning variance,
exception, or use in violation of the approved zoning ordinance.
260 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
Three suggestions for Federal roadside zoning might be considered.
First, the Secretary of Commerce might be empowered to acquire by
purchase or condemnation title or lesser interests in roadside lands
now used for automobile graveyards, billboards, or other distracting
uses. Similar powers might be conferred concerning roadside lands
on which distracting uses are about to be established. Eminent
domain powers as to the latter lands might be suspended so long as
a local or State zoning ordinance, approved by the Secretary is in
force and applicable to the particular lands.
Second, the Secretary might be empowered and directed to zone
roadside strips of stated widths along selected classes of highways.
Zoning powers might be limited to use, setback, height, design and
other regulations needed to attain Federal objectives. The zoning
regulation would prevent establishment of new unsightly uses and
structures. Existing nonconformities might be abated by amortiza-
tion, purchase or condemnation, penalties, fees and assessments, in-
come tax incentives and penalties, screening, or landscaping.
Finally, the Secretary might be granted standby zoning powers to
be exercised if a local government or the State, after notice and
within a stated period, fails to zone the roadside involved.
Mr. SHEPARD. I take as my job in this panel presentation to do
two things: one, make very briefly a remark of my own and sec-
ond, to extend somewhat the indication that Dr. Solberg has already
given you very effectively, that the total time of our preliminary
discussions in the panel was not spent only on billboard advertising.
I take as my text what I thought a very commendable remark
of TVA Chairman Wagner in the discussion earlier this morning;
namely, "Beauty as well as economic strength."
A constructive examination of roadside controls must take into
consideration the relationships between the various elements of the
integrated whole and the balances which have to be struck because
of the competition between those elements for limited funds.
The basic requirement: a safe and efficient highway takes as
it should take the bulk of the funds provided for a highway pro-
gram. Those parts of the available funds to be devoted to screen-
ing junkyards, acquiring and protecting areas adjacent to Federal
or other highways, and related protection and enhancement of nat-
ural beauty can be excellent investments. Funds so invested, how-
ever, are not then available strictly for the design, engineering,
ROADSIDE CONTROL 261
construction, and maintenance of what I learned the day before
yesterday is referred to by the experts as the "traveled way."
The choices necessarily to be made between these competing de-
mands are often not easy to make. The coordination between
them so far as I can see has been done in spotty fashion, some
authorities turning in a good coordinating performance and others
not so good. I suppose this must be about par for the course.
The development of the relationships between Federal, State, and
local authorities as discussed yesterday by the panel of which Mr.
Goddard was chairman is surely crucial to successful coordination
of the very diverse but connected elements in a complicated problem.
The demands for the right kinds of roadside controls have to be
coordinated by the appropriate authority with the competing de-
mands arising from other parts of the whole highway program.
In the preliminary discussions in our panel, the areas hardest to
coordinate well became evident quickly. Not necessarily in the
order of importance and certainly not in the order of the intensities
of the heat generated in the discussion of them, they could be
listed as:
1. How to get the State and local authorities to take the best
advantage of available Federal help for the protection of natural
beauty.
2. How best to protect against impairment of natural beauty by
advertising devices.
3. What to do about the champion eyesores: automobile grave-
yards, junkyards, borrow banks, and spoil areas.
4. How to prevent litter on the highway or roadside.
As the report presented by our chairman shows, we made some
progress toward some good recommendations, and we got stuck in
our efforts to agree on one or two others. This shows there is more
work to be done on roadside controls and that will be no sur-
prise to anybody. But then, what panel did solve all the problems?
STATEMENT OF MR. BRIDWELL.* For most Americans, roadside
areas are a part of their daily environment. The character of that
environment depends largely on the use or the misuse that is
made of the land adjacent to the public thoroughfares.
Except where highways traverse publicly owned land, the areas
adjacent to our highways are privately owned. The Federal Gov-
ernment, of course, has no direct jurisdiction in such instances to
*In Mr. Bridwell's absence, this paper was read by Mr. Hornbeck.
262 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
determine the land use. That is a matter resting within the sovereign
power of the States and their political subdivisions.
Despite this lack of jurisdiction to prescribe land use, the Federal
Government can do much toward insuring that areas adjacent to
Federal-aid highways are beautiful and attractive.
I suggest that the Federal Government can and should take, with
Congressional approval, the following action :
1. The States should be required to expend a portion of their
Federal-aid highway funds for the preservation, restoration, and
enhancement of beauty in roadside areas.
Under existing law, the States can, in their discretion, use a portion
of their Federal-aid highway funds to purchase adjacent strips of
land of limited width in order to preserve scenic beauty. They can
also use funds for landscaping within the rights-of-way. But the
authority is limited in scope and is discretionary with the States. It
needs to be broadened and made mandatory.
The Secretary of Commerce should be given authority to waive
the mandatory requirement if he finds the expenditure would not
be in the public interest. In some States the funds might be better
spent for construction or other purposes.
2. The Congress should enact legislation conditioning the grant
of Federal-aid highway funds with the requirement that the erection
and maintenance of all outdoor advertising signs be controlled in
accordance with Federal requirements. Enactment of such legisla-
tion is essential if President Johnson's goal is to be realized.
Legislation enacted by the Congress should prohibit all off -premise
advertising in areas within 1,000 feet of the outer edge of pavement
of the Federal-aid primary and the Interstate System of Highways,
except for those areas which are zoned commercial or industrial or
where the land use is in fact commercial or industrial.
(Mr. HORNBECK. Departing from Mr. Bridwell's speech: I want
to say that the billboard industry gets blamed for a great deal of the
blight which is due to the so-called small signs. I want to assure Mr.
Tocker, whom I have known for two years and whom I hold in high
regard, that our concern with the roadside environment includes all
signs, displays, and devices and is not confined solely to billboards.)
Off-premise brand named advertising is not essential to the needs
of the traveling public. Information such as lodging, restaurants,
automobile services, and other information in the interest of the
ROADSIDE CONTROL 263
traveling public can be provided in ways that avoid the visual aggres-
sions of forced viewing and respect the right of the motorist to be let
alone.
In this connection, it is encouraging to note that the courts are
beginning to recognize that outdoor advertising involves not so much
a use of private property, but principally and primarily a use of the
public thoroughfares.
3. The Federal Government should furnish technical assistance
to the States and local communities and should work closely with
them as well as civic groups and organizations.
Mr. IVES. I would like to take a few minutes myself on a
subject that hasn't been discussed too much and to comment very
briefly as a member of the team that is primarily charged with
roadside control. Apparently there is a lack of understanding as to
what highway departments do, and the people that work with
them the landscape architects and the manner in which they oper-
ate. I am not going to dwell on it. I just hope there will be a little
better understanding of the highway administrator's problem in that
he is concerned not only with throughways and expressways, but
secondary roads, scenic roads, and he has been working on it for
years. The only commodity that he doesn't have in order to imple-
ment this thing is money.
I would like to talk just for a moment on a subject that is very
close to my heart and it should be to every individual in this great
conference and that is the problem of litter.
Now, no matter what this conference recommends, no matter
what legislation is passed, no matter how we regulate things, no mat-
ter what improvements we make in any activity that is being dis-
cussed here today, we are still faced with the problem of litter.
In the highway field, it is a serious thing. It costs the highway
users a minimum of $100 million a year, enough to build a couple
of miles of super highways and expressways in each State, and eight
miles of secondary road.
For example, it costs 32 cents to pickup one piece of litter which
may be worth two cents.
The question that I propose to the conference, is it worth it?
As far as this panel is concerned, I think I can speak for them. We
will probably come up with some pretty stiff recommendations to
control this litter. It is getting worse instead of better and I don't
know how to control it.
264 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
Questions and Discussion
LAURENCE JAY AURBACH. I would like to speak from the point of
view of local government. The control of roadside uses is almost
entirely a matter of local control.
I would like to suggest that the Federal Government could
help local government tremendously by suggesting standards or pro-
posing a model ordinance for local governments to adopt relating
to roadside control.
This would relate to signs, billboards, to architectural control, and
perhaps have a retroactive effect so it could upgrade areas already
blighted.
The second point that I would like to make is this: this panel
seems to assume that commercial and industrial areas that are either
used or zoned as such should be excepted from a prohibition of
off-site advertising. I would like to contest that assumption. From
the point of view of the user of the road, there is no reason to except
any area from desirable control. So before this becomes conven-
tional wisdom, let's examine this supposition.
Mrs. RALPH A. REYNOLDS. As far as I know, and as far as I have
been able to find out, no State has acted on the suggestion of the
Bureau of Public Roads in its standards for interstate highways. This
suggestion is that all off-premise advertising signs, that is, bill-
boards, be removed and that small-size signs for motorist services be
placed on information panels in information sites within roadside
rest areas. Implementation of this plan is most desirable for it would
give the motorist the information he needs and make billboard adver-
tising unnecessary.
I want to make two recommendations :
1. That this conference call on the outdoor advertising industry
to take immediate steps in those States which have enacted laws con-
forming to Federal requirements to implement the information site
plan; voluntarily, to remove their conventional billboard signs when
the information site is operational. They may find that the informa-
tion site will provide a new source of profit, and at the same time the
industry can become a public benefactor.
2. That this conference call on the States which have complied
with the Federal standards to implement as soon as possible the in-
formation site plan on their interstate highways with or without co-
operation from the outdoor advertising industry, and that this con-
ROADSIDE CONTROL 265
ference call on the Bureau of Public Roads to lend every possible
assistance to the States in working out satisfactory formulas for such
implementation.
Mr. IVES. This again bears out my contention that there is
perhaps not quite enough communication between interested parties
and what the Bureau of Public Roads and the various State high-
way departments are doing in the roadside rest areas and service
areas throughout the Nation.
Many of these things are already accomplished in the area that
you suggested, and many of them are being planned. So there is
much reason for hope.
HENRY D. HARRAL. It seemed yesterday that the people in this
conference either did not want roads or highways, or that if they did
want them, they wanted them to be built by certain private pressure
interests. I think that this conference should try to build a working
relationship between the highway administrator and the other groups
interested in beauty.
The highway engineer was characterized as an insensitive person.
I don't think that is true. I have known too many of them. In our
area, we are working on roadside development improvement, in-
cluding the elimination of billboards. The present billboard control
bill before our legislature is more strict than any the Federal Gov-
ernment has proposed. I would be very happy to have billboard
control made mandatory at the Federal level. But I think it is
necessary for everybody in this room and at this conference, who is
interested in the promotion of natural beauty not to condemn the
highway design engineer. I think he is moving ahead in aesthetic
design just as fast as the general public will let him move.
Some of the things we are doing now, we would not have been
able to do under any circumstances with Federal aid 15 years ago.
We are moving ahead and we want to work with you. I don't think
highway designers and builders should be whipping boys. We are
working with the people here, not against them.
Mr. IVES. I don't think we should feel too sorry for high-
way administrators. I get whacked every day. This is nothing new.
But I do think that there should be greater communication and more
public dissemination of information as to what various people who
attend this conference are doing, and I am hoping there will be a
general exchange of information.
266 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
Mrs. J. MELVIN NELSON. I have a question I should like to ask
you, Mr. Chairman.
In view of what we are trying to do in this beautification confer-
ence and in view of what our President has suggested, why is it that
there is a representative of the outdoor advertising industry sitting
on this panel, considering their defamation of scenic views? They
are one of the most destructive elements of beauty in this country, and
I am talking about all kinds of signs, all types, including billboards.
Why didn't you call in representatives of the strip miners? Why are
they sitting in a position on beautification issues? Why don't we
have a junk car dealer, or water polluter, or beer can maker, or lit-
terbug sitting on the panel?
Surely, they, too, have some ambiguous statements that they could
have made to defend themselves.
Mr. TOGKER. May I reply?
Mr. IVES. No, you may not. We are not going to start a
controversy. It has been a valuable adjunct to have Mr. Tocker here
and he has made some real statements.
FRANCIS S. LORENZ. It seems to me that we are all over the
lot on this subject of natural beauty. What are we seeking
to accomplish? Who are we blaming? Who is going to give up
something in order that some other segment of our population gets
something? Beauty, as the saying goes, is only skin deep. What
might be beautiful in one man's eyes may be ugly in another's. A
person in love looks through a pair of eyes that sees beauty in every-
thing.
It seems to me that the natural beauty of our America can be
enhanced. It can be done with a little give and take on the part
of all segments of society.
The emphasis of preserving natural beauty should be immedi-
ately placed on educational programs to insure immediate results.
Litter, trash, garbage, willful and malicious destruction and deface-
ment of publicly owned and privately owned property are areas
where natural beauty can be restored almost immediately. Let's
all of us stop looking for scapegoats and roll up our sleeves and go
to work. We are all responsible and we are all culpable. If we
rebuild and preserve all the areas that have been mentioned in
the hearings yesterday and this morning, it is going to cost huge
sums of money, but it will be of no avail, unless you and I decide
ROADSIDE CONTROL 267
to maintain this beauty by acts of cleanliness and respect each other's
property not just for today but for all of the tomorrows to come.
We can stamp out ugliness, but please, let's not stamp out tax
payers at the same time. Let's look in a mirror and the person that
we see in the mirror is the person who should be doing his share
of the job.
I want to compliment the chairman on his intention to recom-
mend stronger antilittering laws.
Dr. DOROTHY A. MUNCY. I want to second a comment that was
made by the gentleman from Santa Clara, Calif., and recommend
that your Committee reconsider the emphasis that you are placing
upon putting billboards into industrial road zones.
In my work as a consulting city planner I assist communities in
upgrading development standards for industrial zones. I recom-
mend to city councils and to county boards that they prohibit bill-
boards in any industrial zones which will have freeway frontage.
To my private clients, those who are developing industrial parks,
I make the same recommendation. Private industry has been seek-
ing prestige sites fronting on major highways for more than a decade.
Industrial management is spending extra millions for architecture
and landscaping to build show-case plants on these prominent sites.
Industry wants to present an attractive appearance and to be a good
neighbor. This is an example where private investment can con-
tribute to the appearance of the highway and to natural beauty in
the community. But this private investment in handsome industrial
buildings and in landscaping should be protected against billboards
as neighbors. I hope you will reconsider the statements that appear
to be accepted by all of you, and that your Committee will finally
recommend that billboards be prohibited in industrial zones along
freeways.
Mr. IVES. I wasn't aware we had reached any conclusions.
If we have, as to final recommendations on billboards, I am not
aware of it.
FRANCIS W. SARGENT. I am in charge of the highway program in
our State. I am a queer sort of duck because since 1 947 I have been
in the conservation business. As a matter of fact, I was Director of
the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission and I think
one of the most important things that has happened at this confer-
ence has been that the conservationists, and the highway people, and
779-59565 18
268 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
the people related to highways and highway construction have gotten
together. I disagree completely with the lady from Arizona who
feels that the outdoor advertising people shouldn't be permitted to
be here and participate. I think the very advantage of this meeting
has been, and I think it was the plan of the President and the plan
of Mr. Rockefeller, that there would be an opportunity for us all
to look at this problem, together rather than to blindly oppose one
another as we have over the years.
I personally feel that this is important. I think the President has
said we should, in this country, learn to reason together, and this,
I think, is what we are doing. So that I frankly think that it is im-
portant to have a representative of the Outdoor Advertising Asso-
ciation here as a participant. As a conservationist and as a high-
way commissioner, I feel that it is important that the highway people
and the conservationists work together to solve this problem. This
is the way we can move forward, and I think this is the intent of
the conference.
Senator NEUBERGER. I would like to comment on what Mr. Sar-
gent has said. I agree that this meeting would be useless if we didn't
have opposition if we were here just patting each other on the
back.
I have had a lot of experience I recently worked with the Sur-
geon General on a study of the connection between cigarette smok-
ing and disease. It would be an absolutely futile report if we had
not had representatives from the tobacco industry.
Along that line I was disappointed in one of our fellow panel mem-
bers who represented the oil industry, which has a great deal of ad-
vertising, who only posed questions but didn't give us any answers.
I wish Mr. Shepard could be asked at this time to tell us how
we are going to prevent the petroleum industry from raising bill-
boards.
Mr. SHEPARD. Senator, I wish I knew. When one speaks of an
industry in this country, this covers hundreds, or thousands, or tens
of thousands of units. And to get a meeting of the minds of all of
the elements in the industry in which I work is a very complicated
and difficult task.
So I don't know what we are going to do to get a unified attitude
by every element in the oil industry in the United States. It is just
ROADSIDE CONTROL 269
too diverse and too complicated to expect a unified attitude on almost
any subject.*
IRSTON R. BARNES. I would like to make a recommendation
that follows up and goes a little beyond Mr. Hornbeck's criterion.
It seems to me we are faced with new dimensions of billboard
blight. I am thinking particularly of billboards that are erected
on high scaffolding above the treetops and of such size they are
visible for a half a mile or a mile away.
Mr. Ives, I know you are familiar with that Howard Johnson sign
that you can see in Stratford, crossing the Housatonic. I went to
Williamsburg this weekend and saw signs that were as wide as the
stage at treetop level, well beyond the right-of-way.
It seems to me that these are obvious attempts to appropriate values
that have been created by public investment. They are a trespass on
public property and I should like to recommend that Mr. Hornbeck's
staff and Mr. Ramsey Clark's legal staff study this matter and dis-
cover if it isn't possible to apply the laws of trespass to those bill-
boards that are visible from the highway. I don't care whether
they are 1,000 feet away or 5,000 feet away. If they are built on
a scale where they intrude on the highway, they are an attempt to
appropriate and to destroy values which the taxpayer has created.
MARVIN BURNING. Contrary to Mr. Sargent whose remarks
are in the tradition of good sportsmanship and contrary to the re-
marks of Mr. Hornbeck who would have us back up in the State
of Washington from the regulation of billboards in commercial and
industrial zones for that would be the effect of his recommenda-
tion and contrary to any disapproval of the lady from Phoenix,
Ariz., I believe that you had a true statement of an honest indigna-
tion from the ladies of America. For a long time we have heard
the kind of smooth talk that says, "We want to get along with you,
take our billboards, we are for children, we are for beautiful, Join
Seattle Beautiful, the Chamber of Commerce will finance it. See
the pretty America? Nothing will happen." That's what we have
heard in the State of Washington for a long, long time and Mr.
Tocker undoubtedly is sincere in his belief that the outdoor adver-
tising companies will cooperate. But what he proposes, for example,
would mean that in Washington two-thirds of the mileage of the
*It was necessary because of other duties for Senator Neuberger to leave the
meeting at this point.
270 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
interstate system would permit billboards wherever existing boards
are, wherever there is a sawmill, wherever the land is devoted to
a commercial and industrial use. Most of our counties don't have
zoning. The Outdoor Advertising Association poses nothing but
the same old, "Let's not do anything now," and the gentleman from
Illinois, "Keep Illinois Beautiful" "let's all talk together" just
doesn't understand the indignation of Americans against being ex-
ploited forever.
BRYCE P. HOLCOMBE. I must say that this conference here today
reminds me very much of the assemblies in the legislative halls
beginning in 1956 and especially through 1958 when the govern-
ment and the Congress attempted to do the job of regulating the
advertising along the thoroughfares of this country. The same thing
appeared and occurred before the U.S. Senate on numerous occa-
sions, both in 1956 and 1958. It was apparently impossible to get
aesthetic-minded people to ever agree on anything, and we here today
have heard three definite positions discussed.
Now, the sign and pictorial painters of this country have never
opposed regulating advertising, but we were in 1958 compelled to
oppose certain legislation. The outcome of that legislation was in
large measure the influence of the 1 6 million people in the American
labor movement.
By all things that are holy, we are assembled here at the Chief
Executive's call and the First Lady's call, and what do we do? We
plan to take to him this afternoon a report from us who are high-
minded and American-minded. If we take him an honest report,
all that we will do is take him a shadow and a reflection of the public
hearings held in the U.S. Senate in 1958.
Here this morning we have heard these same opinions. I am
very sorry the Senator had to leave. The Senator made reference,
or indicated that there is a bill one which she spoke of very favor-
ably that is going to help cure these things. Then the gentleman
from the Commerce Department says we would advocate this, we
would advocate that, and a thousand feet between.
It is confusing. Do we have a legislative proposal or is the Depart-
ment of Commerce going to make one? The opinions expressed
here are exactly what we have had previously and I for one hope
that this panel, this conference, will take to President Johnson the
truth.
ROADSIDE CONTROL 271
MICHAEL R. FAGAN. I, too, would like to express a concern we
have heard from the other two planners. The County of San
Bernardino, largest in the United States, was zoned industrially, the
entire 20,000 square miles in 1951. We now have four interstate
freeways, each one of which has approximately 250 to 300 miles of
industrially zoned land. I think that a recommendation from this
conference should be to support and encourage local cities and coun-
ties to enforce the laws that they have enacted, particularly zoning
laws. Without this support at the Federal level, the very fears that
we have expressed variances and waivers of one kind or another
will continue to occur. All plans proposed by this conference will be
subverted because you will not have effectual support from your own
local level. You cannot ignore local support and I strongly urge a
recommendation from this conference to support local zoning control
through enforcement.
JACK B. ROBERTSON. In 1961, Washington State passed a com-
prehensive law regulating billboards along the interstate highway
throughout the full length without exception and on certain addi-
tional scenic highways, chiefly in the mountain passes. That law is the
best law in the continental United States; it is excelled only by the
law in Hawaii. Because of this our State has been singled out for
reprisals both in the courts and legislature by the outdoor advertising
industry and others.
I am shocked that any member of the panel would entertain rec-
ommending to the President a law which is weaker than some of the
State laws already on the books.
Mr. IVES. Let me interrupt. How do you know what the
panel is thinking of doing? This is twice that this has been discussed.
I am sure that the panel doesn't even know themselves. So, I don't
know how anybody can be shocked as to what the panel is thinking
when the panel does not know what it is thinking itself.
Mr. ROBERTSON. In 1964, the Federal Government passed the
Transportation Act. Its purpose was to establish a transportation
policy.
I recommend that this panel recommend to the President that
billboard control be instituted as a matter of policy on all rapid
transit lines otherwise we will have a continuation of the American
highway disease along the rapid transit lines.
272 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
I have another recommendation. Many tourists are coming to
America now. Our President has undertaken a large program of
inducing foreign tourists to come to this country. Many don't
understand our signs. But in other countries in fact most they
use international symbols and colors to designate items along the
road of interest to the traveling public.
Finally, I would like to see a show of hands of the people in the
audience who believe there should be uniform roadside controls
throughout the interstate highway.
GLESTER HINDS. Litterers raise objection everywhere. Therefore,
motorists that litter the interstate highways should be find $1,000 or
made to do a cleanup job on the State highways to cover the amount.
Statements Submitted for the Record
DUDLEY G. BAYLISS. Admittedly, billboards in their present
sizes are blotting out many stretches of otherwise pleasant roadside
landscapes. And yet some of their messages are desirable to inform
motorists of overnight accommodations and food and motor services.
The means of satisfying this need for information was an important
objective in the 1949-51 joint National Park Service Bureau of
Public Roads Study of the Great River Road, extending some 3,500
miles on both sides of the Mississippi River from Canada to the Gulf
of Mexico. The 1951 joint report of the two agencies recommended
a parkway type of development based on improving existing high-
ways generally to parkway standards with protected scenic corridors,
access control and complementary facilities such as campgrounds,
historic sites, etc.
The report describes and illustrates possible alternatives to bill-
boards in the form of roadside information centers adjacent to, but
screened from the highway with native plantings so that they are
unobtrusive from the road.
Within these centers would be located a series of well-designed
message boards, small in size, to be read from parked cars. They
would carry listings of campgrounds, motels, hotels, restaurants,
garages and other tourist services or entertainments in nearby com-
munities. Near larger cities they could include manned information
stations, telephones, restrooms, etc. All of these would be maintained
by the advertisers and chambers of commerce. Racks would pro-
vide printed folders of various kinds.
ROADSIDE CONTROL 273
At the present time, the team of engineers and landscape archi-
tects representing the Bureau of Public Roads and the National Park
Service is including recommendations for these information stations
for all 10 Mississippi Valley States in developing the Great River
Road. We believe this form of visitor information could have gen-
eral application on all Federal-aid highways and would provide a
form of advertising more useful and more palatable than billboards.
The 1951 report referred to above is now being reprinted. It is
entitled "Parkway for the Mississippi." State or other public agen-
cies interested in a full description will soon be able to obtain copies
of the report by writing to :
The Regional Engineer, Region 15
Bureau of Public Roads
North Glebe Road and Fairfax Drive
Arlington, Va.
DOROTHY W. ERSKINE. In the fight to preserve open space
close to large cities, we desperately need some control or device
stronger than local agricultural zoning to protect and preserve farm-
land. We need a new kind of State or Federal open space preser-
vation zoning to implement better land use policies on both State
and Federal level.
Why not authorize a study of the Greenbelt Act of 1947 of Eng-
land (or Denmark or Holland)? Passed by an act of Parliament,
this legislation has succeeded in England (where pressure of popu-
lation on the land and city growth equals ours) in creating 10 na-
tional parks, 3 wildlife sanctuaries and is in the process of surround-
ing every large city with a permanent greenbelt of farmland. (Lon-
don's greenbelt is 1 miles deep and exists now. Beyond the green-
belt, new growth is expressed in 20 new towns. )
In any case with greenbelt zoning the owner still retains title to
his land and pays local taxes but the farming use of the land cannot
be changed. The farmer can still sell his land (to another farmer)
for any profit he can make but he cannot sell it to build subdivisions
or a factory. All building permits must be reviewed by the local
planning body tc see that the permits conform to greenbelt use.
When the Act was passed, money was appropriated to recompense
any owner of farmland who, in court action, could prove he had
suffered injury by the imposition of this greenbelt zoning. In Den-
mark, 1,000 people appealed to the courts and compensation (like
development rights) was paid.
274 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
By this same Town and Country Planning Act in England and
other northern European countries, all outdoor advertising on rural
routes was banned. That is why motoring is so delightful in these
countries.
The Hawaiian Land Zoning that has just become law is very close
to greenbelt zoning in Europe. One State has done it. Other States
now have a precedent. Perhaps the Federal Government can tie
some of its grants to the provision that States protect farmland open
space by a new and stronger zoning with assessments and tax laws
to conform to it.
MICHAEL R. FAGAN.* Under the title "Roadside Control" one
could easily discuss litter or billboards. The latter consumed the
greater amount of time on the panel discussion. The conference is
to be commended and will enjoy my support for its firm position in
this area.
However, I should clearly like to establish my opposition to cor-
ridor legislation. Many counties and States have adopted regula-
tions which restrict property rights and freedom of land use develop-
ment in different forms. The figure 500 feet in the case of San
Bernardino County and 660 feet in the case of California have be-
come standards with regard to the abolition and control of billboards.
The Federal Government's position that billboards and junk-
yards be similarly regulated to a point of 1,000 feet is only a further
indication of a complete lack of understanding of the redundance
and arbitrariness of our regulations. Further, it is this type of regu-
lation which has caused me to seriously question the over-all effect
of this corridor legislation.
If it is the real purpose of natural beauty to be maintained and
preserved, then we must recognize that the Lord did not arbitrarily
terminate the beauty at 500 feet, 660 feet or 1,000 feet from the
traveled way. The traveler will enjoy beauty because of its presence.
The individual fulfillment will depend on his own tastes, but all of
us will acknowledge that while laws are often based on one or more
arbitrary conditions these indeed have created a dilemma. It has
been suggested that in order to comply with the 660- and 1,000-foot
setback, the average billboard character will have to be 8 feet in
height, all of which will give birth to a sign which is not less than
40 feet by 1 00 feet. The relationship of a series of advertising signs
of this dimension to the roadside and to the limitation of natural
*This is an extension of remarks made by Mr. Pagan during the panel dis-
cussion.
ROADSIDE CONTROL 275
beauty are incompatible. In my opinion the only realistic alternative
to corridor legislation is the use of land-use control through the real-
istic adoption of use classifications. In this area the Federal Gov-
ernment can provide immeasurable guidance, without losing local
support which is so necessary for obtaining the final goals.
The President has called for positive action to correct the situa-
tion. He has not asked for an alternative which allows for the
construction of bigger signs which set further from the highways
which will only further block our view of natural beauty.
CHARLES E. FRASER. The American recreational traveler suffers
both from an excess of billboards advertising consumer products
and an acute scarcity of useful and visible directional signs. He
protests the billboards cluttering and spoiling the view. Yet, he
becomes far more annoyed, when traveling a strange route, when he
misses his turn off because the necessary direction sign is either too
small and he fails to see it, or because his sought-for sign does not
exist.
The swiftly traveling vacationer needs directional sign guidance
in locating the facility he is seeking, whether it be a public or private
recreational lake, public or private park or gardens, a restaurant, or
a place of lodging. He gets such guidance effectively within the
confines of our national parks and a few other large land tracts under
unified control, but rarely elsewhere.
The vital role of directional signs in making recreational auto
travel a pleasant occasion, and the negative effect of helter-skelter
billboards is revealed in the results of the latest questionnaires of the
American Automobile Association, dealing with major annoyances
on the highway. These questionnaires were sent to the representative
members of the 5.6 million AAA members.
Their most frequently mentioned complaints of major annoyances
on the highway were as follows:
Percent
1. Confusing or inadequate direction signs 62
2. Unclean restrooms 49
3. Traffic congestion in urban areas 33
4. Large trucks and buses 31
5. Billboards on scenic highways 30
6. Very large house trailers 19
7. Lack of service on freeways 15
8. Other annoyances 15
276 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
Even on a scenic highway, the pleasure traveler making his first
trip definitely needs direction signs guiding him to the specific places
of recreation, specific food and lodging, and specific historic sites
planned as stopping points on his pleasure trip.
Billboards are not subject to any government control in the vicinity
of the new resort of Hilton Head Island, yet, by joint action of the
food and lodging industry on the island, and the South Carolina State
Highway Department, locally sponsored billboards are rare, prin-
cipally because neat, attractive, and highly visible clusters of uniform
directional arrows have been placed on upright standards at all
strategic intersections. These groups of arrows provide the traveler
with the specific information he needs. These specific locator arrows
eliminate the greatest single annoyance on the highway in the opinion
of 62 percent of those who replied to the AAA questionnaire; namely,
the problem of confusing or inadequate directional signs.
Since each local inn, motel, golf course, and like facility, through
the cooperation of the South Carolina Highway Department and
local interests, is assured space on sufficient sign standards for a uni-
form arrow giving the facility's name, and mileage directions to the
traveler, the local commercial or business pressure for billboards and
signs even in commercial areas is sharply reduced. Their complete
elimination even in commercial areas is probable.
To make driving on scenic roads a pleasure, and to alert the
motorist to location of the scenic roads, adequate provision should
be made for the design of an approved uniform system of directional
arrows to provide direction on scenic roads to the specific food, lodge,
recreation, historical, and scenic spots serving, or sought by, the
recreational traveler, identified by name, direction, and mileage.
The total number of such directional signs on the road or at an
intersection should be subject to initial approval and submission to
State authorities by the local governing body in each county in which
the scenic road is located. To reduce the number of requests from
private business interests for such directional arrows, they should be
limited to facilities serving the basic needs of the recreational traveler,
and further, a uniform charge should be levied, to both defray the
cost of constructing and erecting the arrows, together with a supple-
mental license fee of $25 or $50 per directional arrow for the beauti-
fication fund.
Scenic highway regulations permitting and controlling such public
and private informational signs, of uniform size and quality, could
ROADSIDE CONTROL 277
sharply reduce the pressure for erection of billboards by travel-serving
business in the existing commercial and industrial areas. They
should be made exempt from the billboard regulations presented to
Congress by President Johnson.
FRITHJOF M. LUNDE. It is generally accepted that there is a
valid social basis for some forms of commercial roadside signs. The
trouble with roadside signs is, among other things, a matter of in-
discriminate location, bad architectural and graphic design, poor
ideational content and bad upkeep.
This proposal would at the outset seek completely to bar general
product advertising as a legitimate need in outdoor advertising on
local roads. A distinction must be made, however, to permit prod-
uct-sales or product-service establishments' signs so that local sales
and service agencies can advertise their agency for the general prod-
uct, viz, a tire dealer, or tractor service agency.
Permitted signs in the county or municipality adopting "Sign-
Park Zoning" would have to demonstrate a pathfinding or directory
aspect. A further distinction here would be that on-premises signs
would be limited to product-sales or product-service or establishment-
identifying signs but general advertising would be prohibited
completely.
To deal with indiscriminate location of signs, it is proposed that
sign-park zones be investigated as a concept. Under sign-park zon-
ing, a general county or town directory in the form of multiple sign-
boards concentrated in specially zoned areas would be mandatory
after a terminal period for removal of existing signs elsewhere. The
sign parks would be located within specified distances inward
from the county or town line along the major thoroughfares and high-
ways; commercial, off-premises signboards would be permitted no-
where else. The sign-park locations would be recommended by the
planning agency, adopted as part of the zoning ordinance ; approval
of the planning board would be required and the zoning board of
appeals or similar agencies would be the court-of-first-dispute.
Sign parks could be substantial commercial enterprises and serve
many useful purposes as a town or county directory, unmanned in
most localities but permanently or seasonally manned as informa-
tion centers, if required. They could be well designed by various of
the design professionals, both as to their structures and graphics;
they could list all the town's churches, service organizations, cultural
entities, and commercial establishments, using existing and newly
278 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
designed identifying graphics such as service club crests, calliphon
logotypes and symbol graphics; public accommodations could list
their types of rooms; vacancy signs could be illuminated by remote
leased-wire lines; rates could be posted if desired and pathfinder
symbols could be indicated.
Elsewhere, pathfinder graphics could be permitted at or below the
scale of highway traffic signs to direct travelers.
It is further suggested that some interested national organization
sponsor a national competition to investigate the sign-park concept.
Teams composed of attorneys, planners, architects, landscape archi-
tects, graphics artists or calligraphers, industrial designers, and others
would compete to establish the legal description, land-planning as-
pects, and a design demonstration of the idea. The winning team or
teams would then be commissioned to work with a municipality or
county willing to undertake the enactment of enabling legislation and
with an entrepreneur willing to undertake the first pilot project, to
bring a demonstration of the idea to fruition.
The sponsoring organization could then evaluate the experience
and disseminate the results to all interested parties.
JACK B. ROBERTSON.* This Nation is in the process of developing
a rapid transit policy. Many students of transportation expect some
of the major urban centers will start and substantially finish a rapid
transit system within the next decade. We should take a lesson from
the past and protect the roadsides of all surface rapid transit systems
from visual blight such as billboards, junkyards, dumps, and auto-
mobile wrecking yards. Failure to do this will result in the same road-
side blight we now find along our highways.
A program of positive protection of the roadsides of surface rapid
transit systems should be a condition for Federal aid to planning and
construction of rapid transit systems. This will protect the invest-
ment in the system, promote more pleasant travel, and prevent pas-
sengers from becoming compulsory viewers of advertising signs.
Many industrialized nations now convey information in the specific
interest of the motoring public by official roadside signs using inter-
national travel symbols. This system now has had enough use and
refinement that it can now be beneficially instituted in the United
States ; and this is recommended.
*This is an extension of remarks made by Mr. Robertson during the panel
discussion.
ROADSIDE CONTROL 279
Aside from the additional information that can be conveyed by
such symbols, their use will help make highway travel more under-
standable, safe, and enjoyable for our foreign visitors and tourists.
Also, roadside businesses will benefit from these symbols thus remov-
ing the desire for erection of roadside signs of their own.
J. LEWIS SCOTT. Highway billboards constitute a menace to our
life, liberty, happiness, and sight. They should be classed as sight
blight or air pollution.
A Federal standardization committee should be formed by law
to limit and control all future sign sizes and locations. States could
follow with similar laws. Committee members should be chosen
from those in tune with architectural beauty in relation to natural
beauty.
After proper research on the architectural relationship of signs to
natural beauty, the committee should prepare and issue guidebooks
or standardization criteria for the placement and erection of all signs.
Its coverage should include any commercial or industrial sign on
land, sea, or in the air that is to be erected by Federal, State, or local
governments or by private industry.
Signs should be erected only on the advertiser's place of business
and never on property leased for the sole purpose of advertising.
The committee should work with State, county, and local planning
commissions to establish review boards.
W. R. SQUIRES, Jr. The Republic of Mexico has been operating
for several years a border beautification program and such progress
has been made in the appearance of their border areas, that the
comparable locations in the United States are becoming quite shabby.
I would suggest a U.S. border improvement program be considered
by the President so that the entrances to our country will become
and remain attractive and impressive.
Mrs. FRANK E. WILLIAMS, Sr. As a delegate from West Virginia
to this conference, I wish to offer the following suggestion: There
are many neglected areas and dilapidated buildings in full sight along
our main highways. For those now existing, there is no way to com-
pel the owners to remedy these conditions. Persuasion is of no avail.
For the prevention of the continuation of such conditions, a new
approach to the problem seems to be necessary.
The Federal Government has invested millions in building roads
through the countryside, thereby increasing the value of the adjoin-
280 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
ing lands. The increase has been reflected in the price the owners
ask for the land when a sale of such is in order. Because of the
Federal Government's investment, there has been created somewhat
of an economic interest in the land. To protect this interest and to
further the beautification program, legislation seems necessary.
I recommend that steps be taken to enact a law by which a lien
will be retained against any land 500 feet from the right-of-way of
the highways. This lien will not be something new, as the Federal
Government now uses such a procedure to secure the payment of
income taxes due it. The local governing bodies use the same prin-
ciple when they sell the entire property to secure the payment of local
taxes. This would not be an unreasonable restriction of property
rights as anyone who keeps his premises neat and clean would be in
no danger from the lien. It is only those who are the despoilers of
our natural beauty who would be penalized in this matter.
I strongly recommend that this phase of the program receive care-
ful consideration.
CHAPTER 11
THE FARM LANDSCAPE
10:30 a.m., Monday, May 24
The Chairman, Dr. GRAHAM. We have agreed to consider the
farm landscape to be the nonurban land of the United States. This
is a large segment of the country, perhaps some 90 percent of it. At
least by some figures, the urban and related intensive uses of land
are less than 3 percent of the total. Therefore, efforts to preserve
and improve natural beauty and create a more attractive America
must rely heavily on what is done in rural areas.
Most of the United States is privately owned. There are, of course,
large acreages in public ownership of various types Federal, State,
county but some three-fourths of our lands are in private hands.
That point should be kept in mind and it brings us very close to
some of the responsibilities that Mrs. Johnson spoke about this
morning.
Much of the ugliness in the rural landscape is not caused by those
who live there. Other panels in this conference will deal with some
of the worst despoilers of rural America: great concrete slab dams
and power houses, water towers, oil tank farms, highways, billboards,
overhead wires, auto junkyards, strip mining and pollution of streams
by municipal, mine, and industrial wastes. Yet those who own and
operate the land can also despoil, as through erosion, indiscriminate
cutting and burning of timber, over-intensive grazing, and use of
the land beyond its capabilities. Farm buildings and implements
are often left to deteriorate.
On the other hand, when good husbandry is practiced, we usually
Members of the Panel on The Farm Landscape were Karl Belser,
Frank Fraser Darling, Dr. Edward H. Graham (chairman), Marion
S. Monk, Jr., Andrew J. W. Scheffey, Paul B. Sears, Robert Wenkam,
and Donald A. Williams. Staff Associate was Lloyd Partain.
281
282 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
have a pleasing environment, rational land use and variety and
beauty in the landscape.
This brings us to one of the points that might be considered,
namely, the programs of cost-sharing, loans, credit, etc., which will
permit the private owner and operator to undertake good land and
water use practices and which in themselves may add to the beauty
of the countryside.
We come also to the matters of control and the question of whether
or not control is important or desirable in adding beauty to the
countryside.
May I give you just one personal example: Where I live, we
have a pond which for the last two years has been very muddy because
of siltation from a subdivision above the place, and I apparently
have no recourse. Should there be some kind of contingency placed
upon this, if public aids of one sort or another are made available,
or should controls be handled in some specific way?
It brings the whole question before us of better cooperation be-
tween those who plan urban lands and those who plan the rural
lands of America, which, in many ways, is an extremely important
point with which we may deal this morning. Instead of rigid con-
trols there might be incentives of various kinds made available to
the landowner and operator and the communities in rural America.
These can be in the form of easements, development rights, tax
advantages, and so forth.
Finally, our question involves the whole point of creating an
appreciation for this human environment with which we are dealing
in rural lands.
Mr. WILLIAMS. If natural beauty in the vast expanse of rural
America is going to be lasting and more than skin deep, its achieve-
ment must begin with the care and management of soil, water, and
plant resources the primary ingredients of natural beauty in the
environment.
Natural beauty in the rural landscape is rarely an isolated product
of a single special action. It is usually the result of man's activities
as he manages farm, ranch, or forest land to make a living. Beauty,
then, is often an important byproduct of measures that result simul-
taneously in bounty as well as beauty.
You all know what these measures are :
The sweeping contours of stripcropped acres that tie down erod-
ing hillsides.
THE FARM LANDSCAPE 283
The grass and trees that blanket once-gullied fields or strip mined
areas.
The lakes and ponds that dot the countryside.
The multiple-use forest growth that replaces naked earth.
As these and other measures improve his income, the landowner
can afford farmstead improvements that result in further beautifica-
tion.
This is not enough, I hasten to say, to meet all the objectives of
the total program needed to enhance beauty throughout the land.
We still need the public attitudes and actions, by rural people,
that will reject dirty streams, careless fire in woodlands, littered
farmsteads.
We need to stimulate the desire for painted buildings, for grassed
roadsides, for flowers, for proper junk and waste disposal on farms
and in rural communities.
We need, too, greater appreciation and understanding by the city
dweller, as a citizen and as a periodic rural visitor, of his part in main-
taining beauty in the countryside.
Time will not permit exploring all the areas where the Depart-
ment of Agriculture is redirecting and reinforcing its efforts in the
field of natural beauty. Let me, however, mention just a few things
we are doing and propose to do to see that beautification programs
move forward actively in rural areas.
The Secretary of Agriculture has assigned to one agency the
specific responsibility for coordinating all the department's efforts
toward natural beauty. He has issued a major policy statement that
makes natural beauty a clear-cut objective in USDA's varied pro-
grams of research and education, technical, credit and cost-sharing
assistance.
It may be of interest, also, to report that before the end of this
year, the department will begin work to update the National In-
ventory of Soil and Water Conservation Needs. This inventory,
completed and published originally about five years ago, provided the
first clear-cut picture of the total condition of our non-Federal land
resources.
We found in this inventory, for example, that soil erosion was still
a dominant problem on more than one-third of our cropland.
We found that nearly two-thirds of the Nation's cropland and
more than half of the private forest and woodland needed conserva-
tion treatment.
779-595 65 19
284 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
We found that 25 million acres of land unsuited for cultivation
were being cropped.
We found that about two-thirds of the Nation's 12,700 small
watersheds needed project action beyond the ordinary means of in-
dividual landowners.
Updating this kind of information, as we are now preparing to
do, will provide valuable help in planning and carrying out programs
that affect natural beauty. Similar surveys have been made, or are
underway, on the matter of timber resources in our national forests,
and on the water problems of our major river basins. They provide
the physical facts that tell us quite a bit about the status of natural
beauty. They tell us also what we must do to put our own land into
the condition that will make and keep it beautiful as well as pro-
ductive.
There is yet another ingredient without which these rural beauti-
fication goals cannot be achieved. That ingredient is people.
Literally thousands of organizations and countless thousands of
people in rural America are already at work to remove ugliness and
to enhance beauty. To ignore that fact would be to do them a grave
injustice, notwithstanding the large job ahead.
There is, however, a great and growing need for closer working
relationships between these rural groups and the people in the city
and county governments who are engaged in the kind of regional
planning that results in a better ordered and more beautiful land-
scape.
Soil and water conservation districts and the small watershed
projects, with which I am especially familiar, provide effective de-
vices through which the several segments of a community can work
together on common resource problems. We will help and en-
courage their leadership to give greater emphasis to natural beauty
in their programs and to participate actively in comprehensive plan-
ning that will make rural-urban cooperation more effective.
The new Resource Conservation and Development projects, made
possible by provisions of the Food and Agriculture Act of 1962, and
carried out under provisions of the Soil Conservation Act of 1935
( Public Law 46 ) , will provide an especially effective means of team-
work on a wide range of resource activities, including enhancement of
natural beauty. These projects, because they embrace larger geo-
graphic areas than the other conservation mechanisms I have men-
tioned, necessarily involve a wider range of both rural and urban
THE FARM LANDSCAPE 285
sponsorship and cooperation. We are now helping 1 pilot projects
to get underway and expect that others will be authorized this year.
The challenge and dimension of maintaining and improving nat-
ural beauty in rural America is very great. I trust this conference
will result in clarification of the needs and in a determination on
the part of all of us to move more rapidly toward meeting them.
Dr. SEARS. We underestimate the difficulty of our assignment,
because it involves intangibles in two respects beauty itself being
one of the intangibles. And when it comes to getting things done, it
is not the techniques that are important, but the attitude of people,
the values they cherish. It is very interesting in my travels and field-
work to see, wherever the landscape is in order, it is simply because
people want it that way and wouldn't have it otherwise. We are
dealing, then, with a very difficult recommendation.
As to the question of what is attractive, it is very hard to reach
any conclusion, except this: I would suspect in most minds health
is more attractive than a pathological condition. Ecologists can
assay the relative health of a landscape, in terms of physical, chemi-
cal, and the biological processes. These involve balance, variety and
resilience.
Now, where do we see this? In my judgment, I think that it is
best exemplified not on a large mass production factory in the field,
but rather where one has well-run, family-size farms. Taking into
account the other social values, they also show this variety; they show
this balance and the other attributes which seem to me to charac-
terize the healthy landscape.
Now, I question the extent to which this sort of thing is being
encouraged. Twenty-five years ago I had a talk with a very trou-
bled man who was in charge of the extension work in a great State.
He said, "I am in a tough spot. All these years I have been work-
ing to encourage the family farm. Now it seems the whole emphasis
is changing and I am out to encourage these very large-scale, highly
mechanized, and heavily capitalized operations."
And history in the past 25 years has shown what choice he has
had to make.
I would like to suggest, at the very least, we would do a great deal
to promote the attractiveness and the health of the rural landscape if
we would not give undue advantages competitive advantages in
the way of taxes and subsidies to these very large, highly mechanized
mass production operations.
286 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
We certainly don't need them, because they are a source of surplus
at this time and complicate the problem of the small operation.
To my mind, in any kind of a program to improve the appearance
of the landscape, both rural and urban, land use plans are basic. I
hope we will reach the condition in the States where no suburb or
development will take place without reference to a sound land use
plan.
I think most of you recall that shortly after World War I, Sir Dud-
ley Stamp organized a land use survey of England, using secondary
school students. I have been assured that the plan which was de-
veloped was a very important factor in feeding Great Britain when
she was under blockade in the Second World War.
I think it is the height of folly to go ahead with developments, both
rural and urban, while ignoring land use capability.
Another thing I would like to mention very briefly is the impor-
tance of local leadership and coordination of effort between rural
and urban sources. There has been some apprehension because of
reapportionment. We can take a bit of comfort there, I think, be-
cause, in my experience in the last 25 years, some of the most effec-
tive concern for the landscape, both rural and urban, has come
from city people. So I don't think that aspect of the situation is
hopeless.
Dr. DARLING. The agriculture of the past was diverse on the in-
dividual farms, because it had to supply the needs of food, plenishing
and clothing a local population. This diversity was ecologically
sound, though the process of reaching it was not thought out to that
end.
Diversity makes pattern and variety of color at any moment of the
year, which will live. Plants find tolerance in agriculturally diversi-
fied landscape and plagues and pests are much less likely to occur
there.
I want to make four points in this presentation. This old-style
diversity of landscape is disappearing as new lands develop which
will do any one part of that agriculture better than an area which is
not naturally fitted to it. Highways and fast trucking have been
powerful factors in cutting down diversity and you can grow any
single crop cheaper than you can produce it in small diverse farms.
This trend isn't likely to be diverted, and the most hopeful action
in monocultural districts would seem to be with the individual com-
THE FARM LANDSCAPE 287
panies who run these operations to see if they will attempt to provide
a small amount of diversity on these large landscapes.
I would say second, that agricultural architecture is growing less
pleasing and it is becoming more the processing plant of the large
monocultural operation. Isolation of such plants in the countryside
is not good enough reason for their being allowed to be bad archi-
tecture. Many industrial buildings have great beauty and agri-
cultural ones should try to reach a pleasing standard.
I think architecture should be one of the first things taught to a
child, not by telling him but by giving him architecturally sound
bricks instead of just square blocks and letting him play with those.
Third, I feel that the policy of taxing land can be rather upside
down. If you tax lands when development takes place, then you
retard development insofar as somebody wishes to keep a farm as
a farm. If you tax on potential, as is now general in the United
States (but not over-all there are counties that have changed in
this respect,) it means that the farm between two subdivisions is
squeezed out. It has to develop.
I feel that the tax on development, after development has taken
place, would be a sounder process. I also, fourthly, would like to
bring up the matter of zoning of private lands adjacent to large pub-
lic land areas such as national parks and national forests. These
lands rise in price as soon as these public areas are proclaimed and
a very poor style of development can and does take place on the very
periphery of large and beautiful wild lands.
I feel that zoning of a buffer area around these natural wild lands
would help not only to beautify them, but would maintain the areas
in the condition for which they were chosen.
I think at the moment that some of these things are politically im-
possible, but they should not be politically impractical within a fairly
near future.
Mr. WENKAM. I am very pleased that Mr. Rockefeller empha-
sized in his opening remarks that we need not carry on philosophical
speculation; that we are here not to just talk about natural beauty,
but to offer concrete suggestions on how to keep what little we
have left.
Even Hawaii, famed for its beauty, has not been spared the devel-
oper's axe of progress. It may seem unbelievable, considering the
fact that Diamond Head is the prime symbol and scenic asset of
Hawaii's $320 million tourist industry, but there is under construe-
288 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
tion a concrete wall around this world-famed landmark. The wall
of apartment hotels has progressed to the point where today Dia-
mond Head cannot be seen at all from the main boulevard of Waikiki,
and only occasionally, with effort, from Waikiki Beach.
You may wonder why the advertisements for Hawaii never reveal
these buildings obstructing the view of Diamond Head. Well, I'm
the photographer who has taken all the Hawaiian travel promotion
pictures in the past few years, and I have specific instructions from
the advertising agency not to show any buildings on Diamond Head.
This is becoming increasingly difficult to do. I hope this conference
will help make my job easier and more honest.
Our problem is not just how to keep farms a beautiful part of our
landscape; it may really be one of just how to keep our farms at all.
The traditional farmland we remember as youngsters, the brightly
painted silo, chickens running down the road, and checkerboard
landscapes textured with crops rotated on small acreages, is slowly
disappearing from the American scene. It is becoming economically
impossible to earn a living on a family farm. It may be that if it
were not for government price-support programs, what we speak
of might not even exist except in isolated areas, in picture books, and
on long Sunday drives.
Giant mechanized combines have turned agriculture into a manu-
facturing enterprise with much of its ugly manifestations. The small
farm home and the family have been efficiently replaced in many
areas by the migratory worker and the bracero.
Where the family farmer is holding his own in diversified agricul-
ture, the flaying octopus of urban encroachment and a constantly
expanding suburbia offer him a price for his land impossible to re-
fuse. If he does resist, the tax assessor grabs him on the next time
around.
Haphazard urban scatterization and accompanying freeways are
destroying the beauty of agricultural production where it is most
needed on the fringe of our densely populated cities and towns,
bursting at the seams with a population explosion.
The conservationist who opposes the subdivider and freeway build-
ing finds himself being accused by the politicians of stopping progress,
of hindering economic development, and worst of all, denying prop-
erty owners their constitutional rights.
Here a quiet revolution is taking place in America, a revolution
against the traditional sanctity of private property, a revolution by
THE FARM LANDSCAPE 289
the middle class and intellectuals who are landowners themselves,
and in times past the first to defend the privileges of the landlord.
The revolt is fed by the excesses of shortsighted developers as they
move across the farmscape, and nourished by an American public
yearning for the open space that is increasingly seen only in Sierra
Club coffee-table gift books.
The political implications of a democratic republic, whose people
live by law and guarantee their freedoms through the courts, is mani-
fested most dramatically when the people rebel at desecration of
natural beauty they assumed to be public property. They are learn-
ing that property owners are resisting this assumption. Citizen
groups who stand up to object are ruled out of order by planning
commissions and struck down by the courts.
It is increasingly evident that if we are to permanently protect
America's "farmscape" from unrestricted urban eroding of the
countryside, we must take a new look at our traditional property
rights in order to retain our individual freedoms in a growing Nation.
President Johnson expressed the need for action in the planning
arena quite well in his state of the Union message :
We do not intend to live in the midst of abundance, isolated from
neighbors and nature, confined by blighted cities and bleak suburbs.
For over three centuries the beauty of America has sustained our spirit
and enlarged our vision. We must act now to protect this heritage.
The now well-established concept of city zoning ordinances, tested
and found constitutional in our courts, must be expanded to include
the countryside and farmlands.
Hawaii's unique land use legislation providing for zoning of all the
the land in the State, public and private, urban and farm, may well
set an example for the Nation to follow or adopt. The findings and
declaration of purpose as written in Hawaii's land use law, are very
appropriately applied, not only to protect agricultural enterprise, but
to effectively protect natural scenic resources as well.
All the land in the State is zoned within four land use districts
urban, rural, agricultural, and conservation.
The urban limits of each city and town is determined by the Land
Use Commission, the county zoning ordinances of the affected com-
munity prevailing within the urban district.
Mixed farm and low density residential areas are placed in the
rural district.
290 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
All agricultural activities, diversified farming, and ranching are
in the agricultural district.
Conservation districts "include areas necessary for protecting
watersheds and water sources; preserving scenic areas; providing
park lands, wilderness and beach reserves . . . and other related
activities."
It is noteworthy that the Land Use Commission's own regulations
drawn up as criteria to determine permissible uses within agricultural
districts, specifically provide for retention or rehabilitation of "sites
of historic or scenic interest."
While the clear intent of the law is primarily to preserve agricul-
tural lands from urban encroachment for economic reasons, the nat-
ural beauty of the farmscape is protected in a very practical man-
ner. It is a simple step to further prescribe that preservation of our
farmlands is also necessary to protect the natural growth of the
farmscape.
It is time we recognize that natural beauty is public property and
ban trespassing by vandals. Let us recognize the public rights to
open space and natural beauty on the same legal level as private
rights to private property.
Let us declare America's natural beauty the land, the sea, and
the sky the property of all.
As we recognize the legal consequences of zoning to preserve nat-
ural beauty, we are going to be involved in considerable legislation
and testing in the courts, but I think we must learn to realize that
we must hold the land in safekeeping, whether we hold title or not.
And the prospect of zoning by the States, through cooperation with
the counties, may well be a way to protect our natural beauty and
still protect our freedoms.
Mr. BELSER. I think we all have a pretty good idea of the objec-
tive. Our real concern relates to what we can do in the way of
action on this problem. As a representative of local government on
this panel, I would like to emphasize the role of local government,
the action role which local government can assume.
I was interested to learn this morning that there are something
over 3,000 counties and local governments local rural govern-
ments in the United States, and of this number less than 10 percent
have any program for conservation or park and recreation develop-
ment. This makes the remarks that I am going to make very per-
THE FARM LANDSCAPE 291
tinent, it seems to me, because if this is true, then there should be
more action at the local governmental level.
What can local government actually do along this line? I think
what we are asking for is a declaration on the part of local govern-
ment that one of the objectives of local administration shall be to
have natural beauty prevail. It seems to me this brings you right
up against your own place of domicile. You may ask: How does
our county corporation yard look? What does our county quarry
look like? How is our county sewage plant built? How is our
county waterworks built? Is it a thing of beauty or is it a disgrace?
It seems to me that only by a county taking the initiative of seeing
to it that its own house is in order can it inspire anybody else to do
anything about it.
Next, I think the county should provide a general plan and a part
of that general plan should have a beauty aspect. It should be con-
cerned with parks, open spaces, conservation, and that sort of thing.
Now, these suggestions I am making are provided for in most
State enabling legislation, so that there is no real excuse for negli-
gence in these regards.
If a plan is provided, it shouldn't be one that will be rolled up and
placed on a shelf somewhere. It should be supported by a fiscal pro-
gram for implementation. It should also be supported by a pro-
gram of public education which indicates to the public at large that
this is a program worthy to be supported by votes for bond issues.
Local government should also develop an organization within its
structure for the administration of these kinds of facilities. And if
this kind of plan is properly drawn, it will penetrate all segments of
the county, or the local jurisdiction, and will also provide inspiration
to others to do likewise, to improve their property. It is interesting
to note that the public sector of the sphere, particularly in metro-
politan areas, is an increasing one, and the amount of influence
which it can bring to bear is tremendous.
Furthermore, each local government unit should have a public
education policy, and it should overtly help and encourage citizen
action along this line.
It should also consider that all of its public works, regardless of
what they are, have a potential for multipurpose demonstration
along the line of open space and resource conservation, and that this
holds for flood control, freeways, and all kinds of action which local
governments take constantly to improve the services of the com-
munity.
292 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
These can all be integrated into a beautification program which
can make the community much more beneficial.
Dr. SCHEFFEY. I am going to approach the topic of this panel
somewhat indirectly by looking at the land-grant State university
system that exists in this country as an institutional force potentially
qualified (and I would underscore this term "potentially") to deal
with many future problems of landscape quality on a continuing
basis.
This unique combination of research, teaching, and extension
education, as we all know, has had a central thrust upon the entire
agricultural enterprise in this country and has had a profound influ-
ence upon many aspects of resource development. Much of this
past effort, however, has been directed toward counteracting the ill
effects of unsound land use practices and resource development
policy.
Current knowledge enables us now to foresee future changes with
greater clarity, to anticipate what future needs are going to be, and
to avoid many costly mistakes in the use of land. Mr. Rockefeller
pointed out this morning that, over the next 40 years, we are going
to practically rebuild large portions of this country. Here is an
opportunity to avoid mistakes.
By focusing on landscape quality and design, a charge which
would be wholly consistent with the historical mandate of the State
university systems, these institutions could become powerful agents
for generating workable concepts and practices of what I would refer
to as environmental stewardship, and I would think this is really
what this portion of the conference is about.
The challenges of the new conservation now demand such a
broadening of traditional areas of concern in each of the States.
This university system constitutes a potentially vital focal point for
gathering new knowledge about landscape problems, for producing
a professional corps capable of utilizing this knowledge, and for creat-
ing the organizational innovations necessary for applying it to the
land. I think this is what we have been hearing about during the
last two presentations. This system could become a viable frame-
work for implementing many of the proposals stemming from this
conference, transmitting them into action programs at State and
local levels.
These institutions could provide the institutional support neces-
sary for formulating forward-looking landscape policies embracing
THE FARM LANDSCAPE 293
agriculture and other forms of resource use and involving citizens
and business interests as well as the governmental agencies.
Basic adjustments, however, are going to be needed if these in-
stitutions are to respond fully to this challenge. The transition will
not be automatic or easy. It is going to require more than the addi-
tion of some new programs and the retraining of existing personnel.
Within many disciplines there will have to be a redirection of
academic and research emphasis, one that recognizes beauty and
natural amenities as integral and legitimate products of the land,
equal in importance to the more traditional resource commodities
and services. Areas of responsibility must be extended to include
urban and community interests in the land.
In the final analysis, it seems that the citizen, as well as the land-
owner and the landscape shapers (both the public and the private
ones ) must begin to participate more actively in determining stand-
ards of quality and beauty in communities and on landscapes
throughout the Nation. As Professor Sears pointed out, this is
basically a question of attitudes and values. The basic need is to in-
crease the citizen's sense of environmental awareness, to promote
keener sensitivity to the changes that are taking place and fuller
understanding of the possibilities for alternative forms of develop-
ment.
All of this is going to demand a sustained educational effort. It
is a task which the State university systems adapted to local political
and ecological conditions and with a tradition of service to the larger
statewide community, are particularly qualified to accept.
They can provide continuity and integration for other public pro-
grams and they can participate in the training of future landscape
managers.
Therefore, in conclusion, I would suggest that we look to the
State universities to assume much of the leadership in providing
followup action to many of the proposals stemming from this con-
ference. These institutions might well be encouraged to sponsor
similar statewide natural beauty gatherings, applying the findings of
this conference to localized situations. And finally, we might con-
sider the establishment in several parts of the country, in connection
with several major institutions, of a series of pilot demonstration
programs in landscape planning on a regional basis, designed to
undertake research, to promote more imaginative approaches to
public education and community involvement in these problems,
294 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
and to work toward the formulation of workable landscape policies.
What I am suggesting, in short, is that we think about the develop-
ment of a universitywide system of extension education, focused on
problems of landscape quality and design.
Mr. MONK. The restoration, the enhancement, and the mainte-
nance of natural beauty as an integral element or characteristic of the
rural landscape are desirable goals, capable of accomplishment. In
this presentation, the farmstead will be regarded as part of the land-
scape.
There are a number of prevailing reasons why significantly large
tracts of the rural landscape are either deteriorating in appearance
or are failing to make a reasonable contribution to a countryside
that ought to be notable for its natural beauty. It is useful to iden-
tify some of the chief causes of ugliness, monotony, and drabness as
a prerequisite to recommending solutions.
Beauty rarely exists in the midst of poverty. For the millions of
rural people trying to get along with marginal income or less, mat-
ters of beauty do not get a high priority. First claims on the funds
and attention of low-income families are the size of the next crop,
payment of taxes, payment on the interest and principal of loans,
clothing and education for the children, bread to eat, and a roof
overhead. Low farm income is probably the number one enemy of
natural beauty in rural America.
Investments in beauty are investments in the future. There is
little incentive for farm families to invest in the appearance of farm-
steads or farms when foreclosures or sale are just around the corner.
Thousands of farm families are leaving the farm each year, and this
instability operates against attention to beauty in the countryside.
Even where there is stability and a reasonable income, attention
to the appearance of the farmstead and the landscape has suffered
from apathy or misguided notions that investments in appearance
are either superficial, vain, or improvident. In too many commu-
nities, a pleasing environment has not been given the status of an
acceptable community or individual objective. In these circum-
stances, there is neither organization nor attitude to identify aspects
of beauty and foster them.
There is an increasing area of abandoned and little-used land in
rural America, as agricultural production efficiency operates to con-
strict the acreage devoted to crops and livestock, and as small farms
are sold or retired from production. Increasing thousands of acres
THE FARM LANDSCAPE 295
are growing up in weeds, brush, untended grass, and scrub trees.
More often than not, these lands become an eyesore.
In addition to untended idle land there is eroded land land torn
with gullies by excessive or misguided use, stripped of its productive
topsoil, and laid bare by wind and water. Whether as forlorn rem-
nants of former mistakes, or the angry evidence of damage now
progressively underway, these marks of waste are, to say the very
least, unsatisfying.
Neither beauty nor attention to it are automatic. Heretofore
there has been little realistic incentive to bring action in this direction.
As a government or community purpose, it has not often ranked high
as a claimant for time, money, informational help, or technical
assistance.
If these are, indeed, some of the key reasons for cancer spots of
ugliness, drabness, and inattention to beauty in the rural landscape,
then some of the avenues to improvement become evident.
We need to continue our exploration in the United States for
ways to improve the income of disadvantaged rural landowners and
operators.
We need to continue our concern for farm family stability.
We need a program purposefully focused on the use of land within
its basic capabilities and the treatment of land according to its needs
for protection and waste. Eligible use, in this program, should not
be confined to commodity production.
We need a program of technical assistance, cost-sharing, and per-
haps loans to help convert abandoned, idle, or little-used farmland
from the ugliness of weed and brush infestation to some constructive
uses whether these be for wildlife, nature trails, water development,
or purely aesthetic enjoyment.
We need to step up conservation and resource development work
on the operating farms and ranches of the country not only to heal
the scars of past carelessness and exploitation, such as gullies, muddy
streams, and eroded fields, but to create the fact as well as the appear-
ance of orderly cooperation by men with nature.
We need to establish the restoration and enhancement of natural
beauty as an acceptable, important goal of the people of the country.
Government agency personnel working in the countryside must
be authorized and directed to assist, through their regular program
functions, toward attainment of the goal.
296 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
Progress will require the continuing support and participation
of a variety of local organizations. Important among these are the
3,000 soil and water conservation districts organized under State
laws in the 50 States, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. They
are operated by local people and concern themselves with the con-
servation, development, and management of land, water, and related
natural resources. These local subdivisions of State government
cover more than 95 percent of all the privately owned lands of the
Nation. It is through them that the Department of Agriculture
provides technical and other assistance to more than two million land-
owners and operators and to thousands of communities.
Consideration should be given to a program designed to improve
the appearance of farmlands and farmsteads as well as the rights-
of-way adjoining the Nation's main-travelled highways. Cost-
sharing and technical assistance would be important for progress on
these properties.
Consideration should also be given to the development of poten-
tially pleasing vistas of unique or particularly pleasing natural beauty,
extending well beyond the highway rights-of-way and the immedi-
ately adjoining farmlands. Attention to these vistas, especially roll-
ing lands that have gone out of production or are scheduled for re-
tirement from cultivation, could be most rewarding.
Most important, probably, is recognition that land and water are
basic elements in the restoration and enhancement of natural beauty
in the countryside. They are the source of the wealth that makes
improvement of the farmstead possible. And they are, in themselves,
the very substance of the rural landscape demanding attention.
Questions and Discussion
STEPHEN COLBY. I would like to make a statement in regard to
the Resource Conservation and Development Programs of the Soil
Conservation Service, in particular, and to all governmental pro-
grams in general. I am on the Southern Illinois University Advisory
Committee to the Shawnee District R.C. & D. program of the S.C.S.
I find the Shawnee District, as organized by the S.C.S., divides the
Greater Egypt Regional Planning Commission area in half which
creates potential problems by causing cross-currents that could im-
pair the effect of both programs.
THE FARM LANDSCAPE 297
All governmental programs should recognize the basic units with
which they have to deal, not only in terms of the basic natural re-
sources, but the human resources and governmental resources as well.
Today's technology alleviates the necessity for contemplating nat-
ural resource base as the principle consideration when undertaking
programs of economic rehabilitation. If a group of people consider
themselves to be an economic-political unity, this must be the prime
consideration of future development, either as a part of a larger unit,
or as an autonomous unit, but never divided.
HAROLD GILLIAM. I would like to suggest, for the consideration of
the panel, some possible recommendations for Federal policy to en-
courage the maintenance of farmland as open space. One would
be the possibility of income tax concessions to farmers, or advantages
to farmers and owners of open space, who maintain their land as
open space.
Another would be the possibility of Federal grants to local govern-
ments as compensation for revenue lost when they assess land for
rural rather than urban purposes. If farmland in a suburban area
is assessed for its actual use rather than its potential use, as one of
the speakers mentioned, the local governments will lose revenue.
Maybe there could be a Federal program of grants to local govern-
ments to make up that lost money.
Another one would be the possibility that open space grants could
be made to local governments which have a policy of zoning rural
land, as Mr. Wenkam stated is done in Hawaii. These could be
made either under existing programs, such as the Land and Water
Conservation Fund or the HHFA programs, or under some new type
of program.
Here are some procedures with which the Federal government
might encourage local governments to maintain farmland as open
space.
Dr. CLARENCE COTTAM. It seems to me that there are two things
that are left out of the program, as I heard it from the distinguished
panelists. When the big problem is to make money out of the land
that is incapable of agriculture, more effort should be made to elim-
inate the poor land that Mr. Williams is talking about. We have a
lot of it. There need to be capability tests made of it. There needs
to be elimination of agriculturally unproductive land so the land
can be put into other and better uses.
298 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
We need to put some sort of a muzzle on one or two government
agencies that try to rule independently. When you have a beautiful
bluebonnet patch, we shouldn't let some individual come along with
pesticides or herbicides or with a mower and put through a cutting
at the height of the growing season.
There are a few things of that sort in which there ought to be a
greater degree of coordination between Federal and State programs.
We need to increase our educational program.
DANA L. ABELL. I am a newcomer to the Appalachian region,
having now a glorious time exploring the Blue Ridge parks and park-
ways. And I am most impressed not by the Ridge itself, but by the
surrounding lands and the beautiful rural area there.
It has occurred to me that some of these areas are not long for
this world as far as beauty is concerned. And the idea came to me
that we should be thinking in terms of natural rural scenic preserva-
tion districts that might subsidize lands which are incapable of main-
taining agricultural production, but are important remnants of a
historical past and need preservation. These would be areas estab-
lished around the regions that we are preserving in their natural
state. They would be rural lands of great beauty, which are as im-
portant to our scenic heritage as the national parks.
DAVID K. HARTLEY. I would like to make the point that the
only agency capable of really looking at all land in a State would
appear to be a State agency either a State planning agency or some
other kind of agency, that is concerned with land use planning.
The point was made that statewide land use planning is necessary.
There is never going to be a large-scale conservation program with-
out the support from the central city people. And if conservation
is to be a legitimate land use that can hold its own, it must be bal-
anced off against other land uses. Therefore, it would seem to me
that this conference could well go on record as encouraging sound
land use planning in every State. This is the biggest lack now in this
country's planning structure.
F. J. MACDONALD. Is there any way for this conference to go
on record encouraging the Federal Government to get some sort of a
mandate to the universities and to the soil and water people to start
a series of clinics? These could be advertised heavily and well at-
tended to help people in the areas that we are speaking of.
THE FARM LANDSCAPE 299
We are interested in the educational end of this thing, and we
would like to get people started in this direction. We know the
universities could hold these clinics if the Federal Government would
encourage them and might even send down a mandate to this effect.
The soil and water people are already working in this area.
Could we get them to hold clinics and invite men who are interested?
Dr. BOOKER WHAJLEY. I would like to direct my question to
Professor Scheffey. When you spoke of training landscape man-
agers, what level of training did you have in mind, degree-type train-
ing or not?
Dr. SCHEFFEY. I didn't specify whether this is professional train-
ing or post-professional training. I think both are needed.
I think, as we move more and more into this area of over-all land-
scape manipulation, we have to get closer cooperation on the part of
a number of disciplines and departments.
I think that this has to be encouraged at the university and gradu-
ate level. At the same time there is a need to follow up on the sug-
gestion that was just made for some sort of clinic or short course or
whatever, for what I would refer to as the landscape shapers. These
could be road agencies, public works people, or it could be private
developers, in order to give them some understanding and involve-
ment in the sorts of things that are being talked about here, specifi-
cally, the role of aesthetics and other forms of developments.
I would think this should take place both at the professional aca-
demic level, and also in the area of short courses and clinics. That
is a good suggestion that I hadn't thought about.
Dr. JOSEPH SHOMON. One of the things I would like to offer as
a comment and as a concrete proposal to this group is that we con-
sider islands of green around all of our major 2,000 cities around the
United States and that we convert these islands of green to educa-
tional, scientific and aesthetic and cultural purposes by making them
into the community nature education centers that we so badly need
around America.
All of you here probably know that a new film has just been re-
leased by the U.S. Forest Service in cooperation with the Audubon
Society. It is entitled "Islands of Green." If you want to know
how to have one of these centers in your community, be sure to get
a copy of this film. It has the highest level of government and pri-
vate sector conservation endorsement in this country.
779-59565 20
300 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
KENNETH MORGAN. I have very much enjoyed the reports
that have been made by this panel and I don't know that I can add
much to them. I think the problems mentioned by Professor
Scheffey, and Mr. Monk of Louisiana, have been encountered in
South Dakota. We are talking about a big country. We can talk
about a big program. I can see now that there are some things that
were mentioned here that will work in South Dakota, and I
think your suggestions, Prof. Scheffey, that we proceed through the
universities and mechanical arts colleges, would be of great help,
because we already have these established in our State. We also
have established something which we haven't yet touched upon, but
I am sure we are all familiar with, and that is the forest range pro-
gram. We are an agricultural State. The river forms a natural
barrier extending north and south. The West River country is
cattle, while the East River is mainly large ranch country and smaller
farm units. In the West River primarily, I think, the beautification
program can be carried on to a great extent through the Interior
Department and through the forestry range program which has to do
with our cattle.
DAVID BROWER. I wonder if your panel, Mr. Chairman,
might recommend something like these four points in your final
recommendations to the President.
1. That means be found to seek standing in the courts for rural
beauty, something that would limit the corporate right to seize and
confiscate beautiful landscape.
2. That means be found to establish national and State reserva-
tions of Class 1 lands, perhaps financed out of taxes on overcrowded
development, on capital gains, on landowners a tax on ugliness.
3. That commissions be established that would devote themselves to
the restoration of diversity in the countryside. These commissions
would seek to carry on advanced studies of the importance of
such diversity.
4. That means be found by every commission to guard against the
ominous forecasts that we are confronted with, predictions, for
example, which, if they are repeated over and over again, bring
about their own fulfillment, like the regretful or boastful prediction
that the population will double in 40 years.
LEONARD HALL. Mr. Williams, I go back to the early days
of the Federal Soil Conservation Agency. Your agency was the one
THE FARM LANDSCAPE 301
that originated the idea of land capability, of analyzing it and using
it according to its capabilities.
I write for an audience of about 350,000 people a week. The
greatest point of ignorance that comes through to me from these
people is their ignorance of land capability. They say, "Here is all
this land. Use it." And they believe you can use it any way you
want to. We know that is not true. That is part of the educational
job in this whole picture. Mr. Sears talked about the steady tend-
ency toward bigger land units. I believe we have got to get back
to an ethical and moral attitude toward land use and say "this is where
we have to go, not because science and technology and government
subsidies say we are going there, but because it is right." There is a
lot of big machinery used in agriculture today because it is subsidized
and not because it is efficient on the land. We have to say this is
where American agriculture should go in order to build a better
America, and then we will be able to plan for the right kind of family
farms and keep them. And we were talking about soil districts. I
drive 40,000 miles a year through them and sometimes I will drive
all day with the stink of the defoliant in my nostrils or along drain-
age ditches, where dead fish float on the surface killed by herbicides
and insecticides.
These are tremendous problems in natural beauty. I would like
to make a tiny comment on Dr. Darling's statement. It seems to
me that the education of our children in good taste, and this is the
thing you were talking about, is tremendously important. You
cannot do away with the slum landscape when you have slum-
minded people. Maybe the ones that are here now are too old to
change, but we certainly have to change their children.
Dr. E. W. MUELLER. I appreciate the comments that have been
made here calling for new approaches which will achieve some of the
goals that we have for beauty in rural America.
But I suggest that we also take a good, hard look at the structure
that we now already have. Where we are not doing a good job,
let's strengthen those structures.
For example, the soil conservation districts reach the private land-
owner, and reaching the private land-owner, they can do a lot to help
beautify private land but the landowner needs technical advice to be
able to do a wise job and a good job in planning his land use. There-
fore, any effort to charge a user fee for these technical services that
are made available at present without cost would be a step in a back-
302 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
ward direction. I would like to suggest to the panel that they make
a strong recommendation that any user fee charged for technical serv-
ices made available to private landowners be seriously questioned.
We should make this technical service available to farmers without
cost.
PHILLIP ALAMPI. We have in New Jersey the highest land tax
in the Nation. In order to assess farmland on an agricultural use
basis rather than on the basis of nearby industrial land values, we
had to seek a public referendum to revise constitutional provisions
relating to property assessment. This we did in the Garden State
with a program identified not only as a project to preserve agricul-
ture but also to "Save Open Spaces". The referendum was ap-
proved by a majority of 3 to 1, and now qualified farmers who have
5 acres or more are taxed on the capacity of that land to produce
agricultural crops and not on the basis of adjacent industrialized
or residential land areas.
In considering the difficulty of preserving agriculture in highly
urbanized New Jersey, I think this is a lesson for other States con-
cerned with the loss of farmland. It also presents an opportunity
to the fellow who would like to invest in farmland and make a profit
after paying a rollback penalty. Such a three-year rollback tax
must be paid when the land is sold for a higher use. To a degree,
this discourages the speculator from buying up a lot of farmland.
Our experience in New Jersey may offer a challenge to residents
of other States who would like to maintain, at least for a period,
more open space as an asset to our urbanized society.
Dr. JOHN CAREW. I wish to respond to those delegates who imply
that the preservation of the small family farm and less modern farm-
ing methods are valid means of maintaining the beauty of our farm
landscape. Natural beauty and efficiency in commercial agriculture
are totally compatible. Large size, mechanization, crop specializa-
tion and the use of pesticides are generally synonymous with farm-
ing efficiency. These characteristics are no more antibeauty than
smallness, hand labor, crop diversity, and an abundance of weeds, in-
sects, and diseases. There can be as much beauty in a 500-acre
apple orchard tilled and managed with modern equipment and free
of weeds, worms, and scab as there is in a 20-tree planting, pruned by
hand and unprotected from a host of pests. There can be as much
beauty in a modern well-landscaped and well-designed food process-
ing plant as there is in a tiny cider press nestled in the woods.
THE FARM LANDSCAPE 303
Beauty should never be equated with farm size or modernization.
If we are to continue the progress that has characterized American
agriculture, we must avoid any expressed or implied conflict be-
tween natural beauty and the most efficient production of food and
fiber. Our land must be a resource of economic strength as well
as of beauty.
Dr. SEARS. I would certainly concede that the workable size of a
family unit has been greatly increased. My point is to relieve it
from unfair and burdensome competition through the very extensive
operations which are receiving an undue share of subsidy and are
often used by people who have capital from other sources, to write
off their tax loss. That is my point.
HERSCHEL NEWSOM. I would like to follow up a bit on Mr.
Alampi's remarks about the New Jersey experience. I suggest that
it would be well for the staff and so-called faculty of this conference,
to provide some sort of an indication or report as to similar steps that
may have been taken in other States.
All of us are confronting a vigorous search for new revenue within
our respective States that is even worse than the search for revenue
to finance the Federal Government, and we are going to have to have
it to meet these financial requirements.
How do we do it without imposing a penalty on the fellow that
does beautify his section of rural America? Or perhaps from the
nonrural point of view we might find that the industrialist who beau-
tifies his own industrial site may be suffering a penalty that society
cannot afford to have him suffer. I am only trying to say, Mr.
Chairman, that somehow or other, if we might use this White House
conference as a means of discovering what has been done, we might
eliminate some research work on the part of those of us who are
trying to help our respective counterparts out across the various
States.
JAMES WILSON. I would like to suggest that I was a little
shook up, actually, when I started to come here, by a comment from
someone who said, "Are you going to participate in another Federal
boondoggle?" The thought had never crossed my mind that some
people would be suspicious of the motives of the people gathering
in Washington. But they are. I would like to suggest that a Fed-
eral hierarchy is not necessary in this case, that we have existing gov-
ernmental groups at State and county levels that can accomplish this
304 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
job, and we have active, aggressive individual civic groups that can
accomplish the job.
What we really need is Federal guidance, stimulation, and edu-
cation. I particularly like Professor Scheffey's idea for using the
land grant colleges, the State universities, as a gathering place for the
exchange of ideas.
I would like to leave this thought with you. I see it working in
Santa Clara County, where small county units and cities are accom-
plishing a great amount of beauty and are preserving a fair amount
of the countryside in the fastest-growing county in the United States.
GEORGE SELKE. I wish to comment on the fact that most of the
people of the United States will wish to see the 97 percent non-urban
part of the United States that we are planning to make and keep
beautiful. I am concerned about the way in which they get to the
attractive places and what they do while there. I do not wish repli-
cas of our old railroad depot areas to develop around our bus stations
and airports or the sides of the highways to look like railtrack rib-
bons. I also object to unsightly over-used campsites and to lovely
mountain meadows ruined by picketed packtrain horses.
We will need to pay more attention to the management of the
people who go to see our lovely places. The beauty that we have
or develop must be protected.
WILLIAM GARNETT. It seems to me the greatest area for
action that can come from the greatest gathering of knowledge that
you people already have is the field of education to all levels of
people.
I think we can achieve, as was suggested from the panel, the desire
for beauty through inspiration. I am tired of seeing examples of
blight and the talk of litter. I think we need to put the emphasis
on the positive. I think this education should be a national pro-
gram aimed from the elementary school level forward, right up
through and including a compulsory training on the part of all gov-
ernment agencies that have projects of large scope. I am particu-
larly aware of this, having recently worked quite intensively on a
program with the Army Corps of Engineers. These men are fine
engineers. They have had fine training. And they do fine engi-
neering projects. But they do not comprehend what we are talking
about when we talk about aesthetics and good design.
They could not comprehend this because they have not had the
training or the exposure. They cannot comprehend it because
THE FARM LANDSCAPE 305
they have been limited by the rules and regulations of their organi-
zation. They cannot devote money in their budget nor do they
have the proper personnel to consider it. I feel we are now lacking a
proper educational program. Visual experiences, written experi-
ences, through our schools, will create a new generation that will
be aware of it.
I feel the people who are in the underpriveleged areas that were
mentioned earlier, if given the opportunity to see what beauty is in
other areas, will make an effort to change that situation in their own
area.
I would like to direct a question to Professor Scheffey. Have you
given any thought how the pilot study that you have suggested could
be implemented? I have been proposing such a study on the West
Coast. How would you implement such a program, recognizing
that it should be done in each area? What are the mechanics of
getting something started?
Dr. SCHEFFEY. I haven't given any thought to specifics. I think
this would depend upon the area in which it is going on. What we
might do in New England would be vastly different than what would
take place in the Southeast or Southwest.
Mrs. NATHANIEL A. OWINGS. I want to make a comment. I be-
lieve a farm landscape is a dead landscape without life, without wild-
life and birds. And the new elements affecting those two are the use,
and overuse, and misuse of pesticides.
I am one of many who hope that we can seek out and encourage
safer pest control methods and further restraint in their application.
Now, one other comment I have to make, more related to my Park
Commission work, and that is a question directed to Dr. Darling.
How might we control the use of peripheral lands around State and
national parks? You spoke about this misuse of the lands on the
edges of our parks, which we are all aware of. I am wondering if you
are thinking of a kind of instant zoning when the park is acquired or
are you thinking of an arm of the government moving in?
This is something that we have not found an answer to and I,
therefore, would ask what you had in mind.
Dr. DARLING. At the moment, I believe you could not act very
much above the county level. Zoning in this country is at the county
level. But one would hope that it would reach the State level, that
the use of lands could be guided at least. What is upsetting, I think,
306 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
is when you have a national park and you get an excrescence of cheap
amusement facilities, backed up against the gateway of the park, one
you can see for perhaps 30 or 40 miles. I can think of one such
place right now.
Whether you can get action at anything higher than the county
level, I don't know. This is why I said what is politically impossible
at the moment should be politically practicable in the relatively
near future.
Mrs. MORSE ERSKINE. I speak definitely from the point of view
of a frustrated citizen. I want to know why we shouldn't head into
the question that has been so successful in the northern countries of
Europe, the question of greenbelt zoning. In this, agricultural zoning
is placed upon areas around cities that should be preserved for that
use alone. The owners are left in possession of the land, but they
are compensated if necessary. It is a zoning that cannot come from
a local level. It must come from either Congress or State. Without
that, citizens at my level are perfectly helpless to fight all sorts of
decisions that are made in the belief that urban use is a higher use
and agricultural lands must give way to it.
I don't have to go into it. You know far more about it than I
do. This is help for the citizens.
Mrs. J. LEWIS SCOTT. The colleges and universities with strong
departments in ecology should be consulted on natural resource man-
agement. Diversity of vegetation and animals will help insure a
beautiful landscape. Pesticides should be biologically selective with-
out any food-chain or environmental damage.
Dr. GRAHAM. Someone asked for an answer to the previous ques-
tion. The question, it seemed to me, was whether or not local
zoning, which means in this case county zoning, is sufficient, whether
or not we don't need, in fact, statewide zoning, or possibly some kind
of Federal zoning.
As I understand it, there are very few counties actually in the
United States that have zoning ordinances. Hawaii, I suppose, is
the only State that has statewide zoning. I am not sure there is Fed-
eral zoning, but this is something that we don't desire ; we can handle
it some other way. Am I not right?
Dr. DARLING. You spoke of northwest Europe. In Britain we
had the Town and County Planning Act of 1947, which froze land
values at the 1939 levels. This was a very good brake on develop-
THE FARM LANDSCAPE 307
ment, but the speculative element in recent years has very greatly
whittled away our Town and County Planning Act. I doubt whether
you are ready for freezing land values at some point.
I wasn't ready when that plan came out. But the older I have
grown, the more I feel that it is right, that you will have finally to
freeze land values if you are not going to get completely uncoordi-
nated development.
STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
Mrs. VELMA GOOD. Many worthwhile comments were made re-
garding the family farm in the panel on the Farm Landscape.
The family farmer is concerned about keeping a healthy land-
scape, as Mr. Sears mentioned. He is interested because his greatest
desire is to pass on his land, well preserved, to his son and future
generations. To the best of his ability he is efficient, follows soil
conservation practices, controls weeds, fertilizes, etc.
It is imperative that we keep this type of agriculture in our economy
at whatever cost. The question I had hoped to ask was, "Would
it be possible to include in your report a statement favoring the
family farm pattern of agriculture?"
RICHARD H. GOODWIN. We need some new thinking and planning
to exploit the mutual and compatible interests of the city dweller
who wishes to own land and enjoy a country landscape as a weekend
and vacation place, and the farmer. In a system of private enterprise,
plans might be developed for these two types of landowners to share
the land the commuter providing some of the funds to support the
tax base and the activities required to preserve the aesthetic qualities
of the landscape ; the farmer providing the labor and equipment for
the farming and maintenance operation while deriving some finan-
cial support from the commuter.
An example might be given in the case of a group of small country-
estate owners needing the services of a farmer to cut hay and provide
suitable livestock to maintain pastures. These people could more
than cover the tax costs of maintaining the land as open space.
DAVID K. HARTLEY.* Considerable mention was made in the
panel on the Farm Landscape and in other panels of the conference
*This is an extension of remarks made by Mr. Hartley during the panel
discussion.
308 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
about the importance of statewide comprehensive land use planning
as a factor in preserving open space and natural beauty in the rural
landscape.
The State planning agency is the only unit that looks at all the
land urban, suburban, and rural. Metropolitan planning agencies
are confined to the area that is presently urbanized. It is the area
outside the suburban fringe, where growth pressures will be experi-
enced in coming decades, that needs attention now before the
deluge of new subdivisions, expressways, industrial parks, and shop-
ping centers descends. Rural county governments are most often
ill-equipped to anticipate this growth ; in most cases they do not have
the facts necessary to resist pressures of large developers. These facts
are developed by the planning process through the rigorous research
and design process by which competing land uses are balanced so
that the whole landscape contains each legitimate activity in its right-
ful place. In the absence of effective rural regional planning in most
of the Nation, planning in what has been called "exurbia" or the
rural fringe is done primarily by the State planning agency.
Another point is that conservation, agriculture, and recreation are
indeed becoming recognized as legitimate uses of land, entitled to
equality in the comprehensive plans. However, this puts conserva-
tion in competition with other uses residential, industrial, and com-
mercial which traditionally have been considered higher uses in
direct economic return both to the landowner and to the community
as a whole. Criteria other than strict economic costs and benefits
must be applied to justify reserving large tracts of land for those uses
which are so important to human existence. This justification can
never come without cooperation between central city interests and
the farm areas. City residents benefit from a more beautiful land-
scape just as much as those fortunate enough to live in daily contact
with nature. And therefore city support is necessary in securing land
for these purposes. The State comprehensive planning process is the
mechanism for assuring that all uses of land receive due consideration
in future growth patterns.
Conversely, it behooves conservationists and persons concerned
with recreation to insist on proper recognition for these important
uses. State planning agencies should retain staff members with ex-
perience and competence in resources planning. Advisory commit-
tees of knowledgeable citizens should review plans while they are
being made, not after they are published and all the decisions made.
Conservationists should impose themselves into the planning process,
THE FARM LANDSCAPE 309
because these plans are developed for political leaders who make
decisions about future development patterns.
Thus, the White House Conference on Natural Beauty does well in
recommending support of statewide comprehensive plans. This is
a key factor in lessening despoilation of the landscape.
Mrs. DOROTHY L. MOORE. No mention was made of the large
number (and acreage) of recently operated farms which have been
bought for residential use, sometimes divided, sometimes as a whole.
Though these come under no farm definition, unless operational,
they are recognized by the Soil Conservation Service as an important
field for assistance in conservation measures. In many districts of
the northeast, and quite possibly in other areas of population con-
centration, cooperators of this category outnumber those who are
commercial farmers. If these former farm fields grow up to brush
and scrub trees, they destroy the qualities of the farm landscape,
which may have been a principal visual asset of the area. In any
case, growth of trees will obliterate the views which were formerly
made available with a foreground of crop patterns and green forage.
The problem here is to help the new owners keep their fields in
good shape. In addition to education, joint or district ownership of
large rotary-type mowers is the only means at reasonable cost. In
one area of northern Vermont (Lamoille County) the Future Fann-
ers of America have bought and made available by the hour, with an
operator, a six-foot rotary and tractor. This machine has reclaimed
hundreds of acres that were past ordinary haying, making the land-
scape more sightly and preserving the distant views of valley and
mountain for which the area had become famous.
Mrs. NATHANIEL OWINGS.* There was a time, not long ago,
when land husbandry was part of the art of living. Today the farm
landscape is increasingly a dead landscape devoid of birds at nest-
ing time, and ever more lacking in those amenities of nature that have
inspired mankind over the centuries.
Ironically, the countryside has been impoverished in the name
of production. The trend is due solely to a shortsighted over-
emphasis on short-term economic gain. Efficient has come to mean
only that which returns a fraction more on the dollar invested. The
waste of resources is actually encouraged in the process, providing
only that a profit be made today.
*This is an extension of Mrs. Owings' remarks made during the panel
discussion.
310 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
We boast of increased agricultural output per man and rightly
so, if our concern be strictly technological but we overlook de-
clining net farm income and the increasing costs of maintaining the
current overproduction. These higher costs are both direct, in dol-
lars invested in Federal agricultural programs, and indirect, in
disorderly human displacement from the land and in the death of too
much of our landscape.
One of the modern farmer's most destructive economic tools
which has been responsible for the death of the landscape is the
array of persistent chemical insecticides with which he has been
encouraged, by land grant colleges and Washington bureaus, to
poison the landscape.
Man's long history is full of examples of foolish devotion to nar-
row ends. Today's landscapes bear sad testimony to the over-
emphasis on short-term economics too often advocated by our Fed-
eral departments without clear policy formulation by the Congress.
Our Nation, if it is to endure another 200 years, and truly profit
from the scientific advances of the last 200 years, needs a national
policy built on a lasting harmony between man and the land. Ag-
riculture is still the major land use, so agriculture must be soundly
based.
A healthy landscape is one that produces more than an extra mar-
gin of profit on the farmer's dollar. We have, in this fortunate coun-
try, solved our problems of food production, are in fact embarrassed
by food surpluses. Tomorrow's challenge is to maintain adequate
production while restoring all those natural byproducts of nature that
once made the farm landscape so satisfying.
We can praise agricultural chemicals in the same breath that im-
pels us to call for a restriction in the use of persistent chemical insecti-
cides. This is no more than a President's Science Advisory Com-
mittee and a Senate subcommittee have recently urged upon us. It
is no illogic but a recognition of the complexities of the landscape.
There are, fortunately, alternatives to our current overuse of these
mischievous poisons. We need only to encourage the use of these
alternatives with the same enthusiasm we have lent the chemical
approaches. If some alternatives prove inadequate, we must invest
more in the discovery of new and better methods to enable the farmer
to produce the foods and fibers we want without poisoning the land-
scape. We must, in short, devise a policy of land use that will nourish
man's spirit by restoring that diversity of living things in the landscape
that makes it both more stable and more rewarding to man.
THE FARM LANDSCAPE 311
ROBERT L. PERKINS, Jr. The Chairman's remarks referred to a
pond damaged by silt washed in from a housing development. Since
many such developments get Federal assistance in the form of mort-
gage guarantees one method of protecting the landscape would be to
require that proper steps to reduce silt run-off and other damage
outside a subdivision be taken in order to make the development
eligible for Federal participation. Possibly a way could be found
to bring in soil conservation personnel at the subdivision stage.
In general, a workable system is needed for the regional coordina-
tion of the many Federal activities affecting the landscape. This
would include hopefully, the coordination of all Federal programs
with the objective, recognized by this conference, of protecting and
enhancing the appearance and quality of the environment. To
handle conflicts in Federal and federally supported projects a regional
evaluation system might be set up aimed at providing an orderly
resolution of conflicts in the process of which all resource values
get appropriate consideration.
A number of other suggestions follow : A way is needed to retain
some of the natural and semi-natural landscape features of rural
lands being transformed into urban or suburban communities.
Changes in Federal housing activities and regulations might be made
to help produce an incentive for local approval of cluster develop-
ments or at least some form of density zoning which, with appropri-
ate site planning, would permit leaving features such as steep slopes
and stream valleys unbuilt upon. A combination of restrictions,
incentives and more flexible building codes should be sought to
permit the actual buildings ( commercial, housing and public ) to be
more closely adapted to the existing landscape. Better limits and
controls are needed for earth moving, since it produces about the
most long lasting and widespread landscape blots. More attention
should be given to the suitability of land for development, partic-
ularly soil and water conditions, in determining eligibility for FHA
and VA mortgages.
Our present system which leaves zoning and planning authority
largely in the hands of local government in most of the country, is
outmoded by changes in density and our way of living. Much neces-
sary zoning and planning cannot be handled at the local level.
Leaving all this power in the hands of local government often reduces
the freedom it is aimed at protecting. Poorly informed or motivated
local officials often make sweeping decisions which have a marked
effect on large numbers outside the jurisdiction where the decision
312 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
is made. The competitive struggle to attract industry and com-
mercial development for ratables results in a scattering of such de-
velopment that in turns creates a monotonous uniformity over wide
areas which reduces the choices of environment to live in.
A new category should be considered for National Park Service
projects, one to handle natural and scenic areas which are of na-
tional or regional significance, but are too small to qualify for exist-
ing Service categories.
A systematic designation of areas of special scenic or natural value
is needed so that they can be given as much protection as possible
by programs in which the Federal Government participates. Where
the owner of such areas desires to protect them, some plan of Federal
assistance that does not involve outright ownership should be avail-
able. Lease and easement arrangements can be worked out by
which the Federal Government would be given an interest in land
under the primary jurisdiction of others so as to permit Federal
intervention in cases involving eminent domain. Thus, a Federal
agency would have authority to protect some important lands, when
it felt this was justified, without having first to assume the adminis-
trative burden and costs of those lands.
MINOTT SILLIMAN, Jr. President Johnson has asked for sugges-
tions on specific activities that might be furthered in the field of
natural beauty. The Soil Conservation Society of America is a
technical and educational organization dedicated to advancing the
science and art of good land use. The 1 2,000 members are actively
engaged in the conservation movement of this world.
As these members work with landowners and operators of private
lands and with the care of public lands they are conscious that the
conservation of soil, water, and related natural resources are all about
us in the lands of America.
The Soil Conservation Society of America has developed a booklet,
"Help Keep Our Land Beautiful" by taking a typical American
family through their countryside where they see good productive soil
which produces their food, the trees that produce their lumber, and
the land that produces the wildlife.
It is important that all people recognize the value of looking at the
farms for beauty. Good productive farms, with top soil in place,
are a thing of beauty and produce clean runoff water for our streams.
Civic clubs have provided many of these educational-type booklets
THE FARM LANDSCAPE 313
on soil and water conservation published by the SCSA (Soil Con-
servation Society of America, Ankeny, Iowa) as reference material
for schools.
Dr. J. HAROLD SEVER AID. As offensive to me as a junkyard is an
old ramshackle barn, or other farm building, unpainted and tumbling
down, if not already collapsed. I heard no one complain about this.
Therefore, I propose that steps be taken to coerce or cajole the owners
of such offenses along primary public and scenic highways to dispose
of unsalvageable buildings and to fix up and paint up salvageable
ones. It would be worth matching grants to accomplish this. A
well kept farm is attractive. A poorly kept up one is an eyesore. This
applies to discarded or improperly housed farm machinery also.
MAX M. THARP. Creation of wildlife sanctuaries wherever pos-
sible is desirable to preserve our diminishing population of animals
and birds for the enjoyment of our people. Such sanctuaries are
extensive users of rural land and would be particularly suited to farm-
lands not now needed for agricultural production. These areas
could act as land reserves available for future agricultural produc-
tion if needed. Such areas could be developed in their natural
setting and managed to preserve their natural ecology. They would
provide for the needs of educational institutions for study of plant
and animal life in a natural habitat.
PAUL E. WAGGONER. We are here talking of natural beauty for
the immediate reason that our President led us. But we must realize
why we are able to think of amenities and why the President's lead-
ership will bear fruit. Then we can better assure that we will con-
tinue enjoying amenities rather than suffering squalor.
A startling increase in yield per acre has released people from toil
in the field, it has fed more people on a decreased acreage and it has
freed hillsides from tillage. Thus we have ease to enjoy, food to eat,
and fields to landscape. This is why we are able to think of natural
beauty and able to restore natural beauty.
The prerequisite for continued concern and preservation of natural
beauty is not a retrogression in the science and art of farming, but
greater improvements that will increase yields per acre still more
and thus free still more acres for landscaping, while feeding the
growing numbers of people who would enjoy the view.
Dr. T. T. WILLIAMS. Mr. Monk made a statement yester-
day that beauty rarely exists in a poverty environment. In this
314 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
affluent society there are too large a percentage of our rural people
who live under such a condition. I would hope that this group go
on record in favor of incorporating the basic philosophy and/or pro-
grams of the Economic Opportunity Act in developing rural Amer-
ica's natural beauty.
As land is acquired for parks, roads, and recreation facilities let
us not exploit the poor small farmer who because of his economic and
political position is more vulnerable than relatively large farmers
or landholders. Thus, I would like to have this committee recom-
mend to the President that when acquiring land from low-income
families that it be done on a long-term lease basis rather than through
outright cash purchase. The seller will receive from the government
a monthly check based upon a cost-of -living index. This approach
will serve to ( 1 ) raise the living standard of the low-income farm
family, and (2) give him a degree of dignity and respect to know
that he is receiving an income by providing a product land rather
than a welfare payment. The government will have first option on
the land if the owner desires to sell.
CHAPTER 12
RECLAMATION OF THE LANDSCAPE
1 :30 p.m., Monday, May 24
The Chairman, Mr. MOTT. Landscape rehabilitation is a subject
on which your chairman is not an expert, nor is he familiar in detail
with some of the subjects that will be discussed in connection with it.
I am impressed with the fact that man in his inventive genius,
coupled with the country's wealth and the advanced technology of
the United States, has been able to conceive, design, and produce a
machine for strip mining operations which will move 210 tons of
earth every 55 seconds. This is a mammoth machine. It is taller
than the Niagara Falls, as high as the Golden Gate Bridge in Cali-
fornia and is eight traffic lanes wide.
I also learned that there is a company in the United States whose
genius for organization and logistics is capable of moving from
Jamaica to Mississippi 4 million tons of bauxite each year, and this
amount will be increased to 6 million tons next year.
The efficiency and organizational ability of the sand, gravel, and
rock-crushing industry made it possible to mine, process and move
1,500 million tons of sand, gravel, and crushed rock this year to
satisfy the needs of the building and construction industry.
It is estimated that within the next five years 4 billion tons of sand,
gravel, and crushed rock will be required to build the country's
bridges, buildings, and boulevards.
I mention these facts to give you some idea of the scope and magni-
tude of the industries in the United States that are now mining for
sand, gravel, rock, and coal. We need sand, gravel, and crushed
Members of the Panel on Reclamation of the Landscape were
William Bramble, Harry M. Caudill, H. E. Collins, Edward K.
Davison, William Perm Mott, Jr. (Chairman), Representative Rich-
ard L. Ottinger, Hamilton K. Pyles, and Donald N. Stocker. Staff
Associate was Julian Feiss.
779-59565 21 315
316 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
rock to build our freeways. We need coal for coke to feed our steel
mills and to produce electricity. These companies are helping to
build the United States, to build our Great Society and they are an
important part of the economic growth of this country.
It seems to me that the creative mind of man, the country's wealth,
and our advanced technology could devise ways of restoring the
beauty of the landscape destroyed by surface mining, effectively and
efficiently, if the same effort is directed toward restoration as has been
expended in extraction.
Have we not come to the realization that our natural resources
are neither inexhaustible nor indestructible? The public's interest
in the landscape of this country requires that the utilization of our
natural resources, so essential to the growth and development of the
economy of this country, be mined according to a plan that envisions
the restoration of the area to its former beauty and this dictates a
policy of mining that must, by advanced regional planning and
control, be established that will protect the ecology and environment
of that area and guarantee to the people the restoration of the beauty
and productivity of the land at whatever cost and by whatever means
is necessary.
There can be no halfway measures nor can there be a timid
approach to solving this problem. The extraction of coal, sand,
gravel, and crushed rock from the earth has not been a timid
operation.
The seal of California states, "Give me men to match my moun-
tains." We have developed machines to tear down and destroy
the mountains. Now it's time to give us men with the wisdom and
courage to restore beauty to the landscape, matching the beauty and
majesty of the mountains.
Provincial thinking, politics, and the exploitation of our natural
resources must not enter into the discussion. Every citizen has an
interest and should be concerned. Private enterprise, if it is to be
worthy of the great advances and the economic growth that it has
so ably fostered, must from now on accept responsibility for restora-
tion of the mined areas and the wise use of our natural resources in
the total public interest. In other words, profit and quality of the
environment must be considered together, not separately.
Mr. PYLES. The quality of our landscapes suffers from a variety
of causes including erosion gullies, wildfires, subdivision scalp-
ing, slovenly road construction, and many other acts that bare
RECLAMATION OF THE LANDSCAPE 317
the soil without care or safeguards. However, of all the scars on
our landscapes, surface mine operations, both past and current,
present the greatest problems and the greatest opportunities for better-
ment. So my remarks on the rehabilitation of landscapes are con-
fined to surface mine operations.
First, I want to acknowledge all the good work that has been and
is being done by progressive industry engaged in surface mining. In
many cases, formerly unproductive lands have been turned into use-
ful, productive areas after mining operations.
Unfortunately, all this good rehabilitation work is not keeping pace
with new surface disturbances; nor have we made a worthwhile dent
in the job of rehabilitating mined-out areas of the past where no
authority exists to correct it. Streams continue to be polluted and
related resources are degraded.
We are all generally aware of the scope and nature of this prob-
lem and it serves no purpose to wring our hands or point a ringer
of blame. The real questions are : What needs to be done, and how
can we best meet these needs?
We are at the beginning of a long-term program. The first step
is an accurate survey of the job to be done and the development of
a comprehensive program for rehabilitating surface-mined areas of
the United States. This is now provided for by the Appalachian
Regional Development Act.
As we start on this long-term program, certain short-term actions
can go forward now with the full expectation that they will not be
out of step with the over-all program to be developed. One example
is a provision for the rehabilitation of mined areas on public lands in
the Appalachian Region. Another is to continue to step up research
in all problems of surface mining and restoration. Yet another is
the action that communities, companies, and individuals can take
on planning and developing mined areas for productive use in local
situations.
We can probably sort the rehabilitation problem into several gen-
eral categories for recommended action. One category is the sur-
face-mined lands in steep, mountainous country. Here the cost of
restoring the land to its original value may exceed by many times
the original market value of land surface or the market value of
restored lands.
Another category is the surface-mined areas on level and rolling
topography. Here restoration may be profitable. These categories
318 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
can be further divided between the past and abandoned, and those
being currently mined or planned for future operation.
In the category of older, abandoned surface mines in steep,
mountainous country, the private landowner cannot be expected to
provide full rehabilitation because of the dollar loss involved. The
costs of restoring lands in this category will either have to be shared
or borne entirely by public funds.
The use of public funds for a greatly expanded program of re-
habilitation can be justified by the public interest in removal of
ugly scars on the landscape; improved water quality of streams;
availability of additional public lands for recreation purposes; and
other benefits. To some degree, the Land and Water Conservation
Fund provides a means for the Federal Government and States to
acquire in fee, or acquire an interest in, those lands where outdoor
recreation use would be the major purpose. The States should
find a place for this kind of acquisition in their statewide compre-
hensive recreational plans that are a prerequisite for funds under
the Land and Water Conservation Act.
On the other hand, restoring surface-mined areas on level and
rolling topography could be profitable for imaginative investors and
communities. It is in these areas that cost sharing and technical
assistance from Federal and State governments might best be con-
fined to planning phases of rehabilitation and future use.
Many strip-mined areas in this category have already been re-
stored to a useful purpose and often to a higher surface value than
the original lands. Agencies, mechanisms, and skills are presently
available at Federal and State levels to assist in this work but specific
legislative direction is needed to carry it out.
In addition, we need more uniformity in the development and
administration of surface mining laws by the States. Existing State
laws vary widely in substance and application, creating indecision
and unfair economic advantage among the States. As a minimum,
these laws should include basic principles common to all States where
surface mining is practiced.
For present and future surface mining, we suggest the following
set of basic principles :
First, all surface mine operations should be based upon an oper-
ating plan that includes not only methods and time schedules of
extraction and restoration, but also a portrayal of its final appear-
ance and prospective use. The treatment of waste dumps, roads,
RECLAMATION OF THE LANDSCAPE 319
tipples, and other temporary structures should be included as a
part of the plan.
Second, surface restoration costs should be considered as much a
part of the total costs of mineral extraction as core drilling or hauling
the mineral to market.
Third, specifics of restoration must be adjusted to the landscape
needs of authorized planning units. These planning units would
include highway landscape plans, and community, county, or region-
al landscape plans.
Finally, if these principles for action are to be met within the
margin of profit, there is a need for new kinds of equipment and
methods directed at reducing costs of the total job. The combined
effort of government scientists and the scientists and engineers of
the mining industry should be brought to bear on developing new
types of equipment that will realize the full utilization of our mineral
resources without irreparable damage to the landscapes.
In sum, there is a need to ( 1 ) survey and develop a sound pro-
gram for restoration of surface-mined areas ; ( 2 ) continue and step
up a research program on all the problems of restoration, including
equipment and methods; (3) demonstrate restoration and land-
scape values on public lands; (4) provide technical assistance and
a sharing of costs in planning restoration on suitable private lands;
(5) correct the past damage on steep, mountainous lands at what-
ever expense is necessary ; and ( 6 ) encourage the adoption of com-
mon principles in State laws governing surface-mining operations.
Dr. BRAMBLE. Reclamation of spoil bank areas that are an after-
math of strip mining for coal, is one of the important modern prob-
lems that faces the country in beautification of the landscape. It is
a problem that can and must be solved if we are to retain the natural
beauty of certain heavily populated sections of the country that are
in position to be viewed by many thousands of people.
It is vital to remember that strip mining is a common and eco-
nomical method of mining coal in at least 12 mid western and
eastern States. It is a vital part of the economy of these States. For
example, in Indiana about 15J/2 million tons of coal valued at $62
million are mined each year and over 70 percent of the coal mined
is by strip mining. About 67 percent of this coal is used in generating
electric power, and about 2 billion tons of coal remain available for
recovery mining, which at present consumption rates could last about
1,000 years.
320 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
The spoil banks left by strip mining create a strikingly ugly blot
on the landscape that is all out of proportion to the percent of land
stripped. Moreover, strip mining has often led to stream pollution,
either alone or in combination with deep mining. Using Indiana
again as an example, while only about 2 percent of the land area
has been affected in the 19 strip mining counties and while acres-
per-county vary from only 20 to 16,755 acres, strip mining disturbs
the landscape in all 19 counties and is a major eyesore in at least 15.
In regards to pollution, it is well known that acid materials seep into
the Patoka River and reportedly make it barren of fish life for about
58 miles. Looking at a broader view of six States which border on
the Ohio River, about 5,194 miles of streams are affected in that
area by acid mine pollution.
The vegetation of all but a few highly acid spoil banks can be suc-
cessfully done with trees, shrubs, and grasses. A great deal of planting
with these materials has been done but there are gaps in reclamation
that need more attention, particularly in beautification along roads
and highways. In Indiana about 82,475 acres have been strip mined,
and of these, 69,092 acres have been reclaimed and 9,476 acres of
water have been produced. The latter are a source of excellent fish-
ing where not polluted by acid materials.
In nearly all States where strip mining is widespread there are laws
that regulate strip mining and provide for reclamation. These laws
vary from State to State. Considerable differences exist among
them in the degree of leveling required, and in methods of in-
spection and enforcement. A study of existing State regulations
should be made immediately as a basis for recommending model
and effective State regulations. These should be so drawn up that
they could be fitted to the special geologic, topographic and eco-
nomic conditions of the various States. A uniform Federal law
should not be imposed upon the States involved.
A solution to the strip mine problems should be sought in strong
State regulations supported by active mining associations and
corporations. This would require professional reclamation staffs
employed by the mining industry to be reinforced by Federal
and State cooperation in such items as planting stock and inspec-
tion. The present Federal agencies are adequate to do this
with cooperation of the State conservation departments and mining
industries if adequate financial support is given. Such a system has
worked in Indiana for a number of years. Shakamak State Park
RECLAMATION OF THE LANDSCAPE 321
and the Green Sullivan State Forest are major recreational areas
that indicate how beauty can be created where strip mining had
disturbed a large percent of the land area.
Specific needs of the immediate future are reclamation along high-
ways and beautification of the landscape around the water impound-
ments that have been created by strip mining. This will require
State and county planning for rehabilitation to provide for outdoor
recreation, hunting and fishing, and production of wood products.
Such a program could be made a top priority for use of the new Land
and Water Conservation funds and for the Bureau of Outdoor Recre-
ation to help plan and acquire reclaimed land for development of
public recreation areas in mining States.
Mr. STOCKER. Pennsylvania Power & Light Co., an investor-
owned electric utility, serves a 10,000-square-mile area in central
eastern Pennsylvania. The northeastern portion of this territory
contains the anthracite area which had a one-industry economic
base for many years.
The anthracite industry's decline resulted in the loss of 58,000
mining jobs from 1945 to 1960 and the emigration of 100,000
people. It also ignited the tremendous spirit and action of the people
in the region to aggressively seek new diversified industries. Their
achievements have been outstanding a gain of 31,000 new manu-
facturing jobs in the last 10 years alone.
The anthracite area has had many tools to work with . . . plant-
sites, shell buildings, low-cost financing, a supply of capable and
willing workers, friendly people, convenience to the Nation's largest
markets, transportation, schools, housing, and a willingness to co-
operate among communities. However, new trends have been oc-
curring in plant location studies. Site selection is becoming more
sophisticated. Ever increasing importance is being placed on area
appearance.
There are sharp contrasts in the natural environment of the anthra-
cite area. From one side of a mountain you can see a lovely fertile
valley. From the other side of the same mountain the view is marred
by spoil and culm banks and the scars of strip mining. Years of
mining operation have left their mark on the area. Though the
scars are evidence of the region's extensive and continuing contribu-
tion to progress, they are, at the same time, becoming an increasingly
greater deterrent to accelerating the area's economy.
Here is where remedial action had to be taken in the anthracite
322 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
area. In line with its comprehensive area development activities,
P.P. & L. accepted the responsibility for initiating a beautification
program throughout the anthracite area. The program is called
Operation Trees. The objective is to establish vegetation trees for
the most part either to screen the view of disturbed areas or to cover
disturbed areas entirely. The landscape would then become attrac-
tive which would, in turn, enhance the region's opportunities for
securing new industries.
In July 1961, P.P. & L. contracted for research to be undertaken
by the Northeastern Forest Experiment Station, U.S. Department
of Agriculture. They prepared maps delineating and classifying
all disturbed areas by spoil type and existing tree cover. They also
indicated the areas requiring screen and cover plantings and they
indicated potential water recreation sites.
Their survey showed a total disturbed area of about 175 square
miles. They estimated 20 million trees would be required for the
conspicuous, most unsightly areas that were easily visible from the
main roads. Less than a million would be for screen plantings
and the remainder would be cover plantings.
In addition to mapping, the research work is also determining
the growth and survival rate of various species of trees on mine banks,
and the suitability of various trees for cover and screening purposes.
Research is being conducted on areas which were planted by the
Pennsylvania Department of Forests and Water and the Department
of Mines and Mineral Industries. Eleven species have so far been
found to survive on 172 plots located throughout the region. These
11 species have been classified as to survival, vigor, aspect, height,
age, soil material, and slope.
In addition, 40 experimental areas were planted by the Forest
Service during the 1963 spring planting season, so that other species
could be determined suitable for planting on spoil banks. However,
this information will not be available until next year. P.P. & L.
contacted the major mining interests to inform them of this program
and they have been most cooperative.
With the completion of the initial phases of the research work in
1963, P.P. & L. planted five sample areas along arterial highways
with ball and burlap trees. These gave the public an opportunity
to see the potential effect of the screening program.
Our next step was an extensive campaign to secure volunteer
groups who would assist in the first mass screen plantings in 1964.
RECLAMATION OF THE LANDSCAPE 323
P.P. & L. purchased over 250,000 seedlings from private nurseries
and they were planted last year around 33 communities by 2,700
volunteers from 139 organizations. This spring an additional
225,000 seedlings were planted through the same type of cooperative
endeavor.
The proper choice of species, and their positions in a roadside
screen, are important for rapid initial effects and for long-time shield-
ing. Slow-growing evergreens like the spruces, which hold their
branches for many years, should be planted in the front portion of
a screen. The central portion should consist of faster growing ever-
greens, such as pines. The portion farthest from the road should
be planted by still faster growing species, which can be deciduous.
It should be stressed that efforts must be concentrated on planting
seedlings because of the ease of planting them and because of the vast
areas to be planted. Balled and burlapped stock could require fer-
tilizer, lime, and great quantities of water. Seedlings have a much
better chance to establish themselves.
Whether we plant seedlings or ball and burlap stock, we can never
expect 1 00 percent survival. Too many factors enter into the picture
which could cause the death of a tree even before planting. Trans-
portation, exposing roots to the air before planting, and even the
method of planting could cause death of the tree. However, we
can expect a high percentage of the trees to survive.
Planting areas are selected on the basis of their suitability for
planting and the physical results which they render. In all cases,
P.P. & L.'s forester prepares a soil analysis of each planting site and
recommends the species to plant in that particular area.
We are hopeful the screen plantings will be completed within an-
other two years.
What has been our experience to date on this program and what
do we see ahead?
1 . Operation Trees was designed as a volunteer self-help program.
A good part of the plantings have been made by youth groups. We
feel this has been one of the most important aspects of the entire
activity the willingness on the part of the young people to actively
participate in beautifying their home areas.
2. We found that changes are continually occurring in the status
of potential planting sites. A few examples under governmental
programs some of the huge culm banks are being utilized to flush
nearby deep-mined areas; the Pennsylvania Department of Mines
324 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
and Mineral Industries makes extensive cover plantings each year;
some of the disturbed areas are being reclaimed and developed for
residential, commercial, and industrial purposes; and the recently
enacted Appalachian development program will reclaim some of the
disturbed area.
We are now in the process of updating the maps as an aid to de-
termining the present status of the problem and the scheduling of
new plantings.
3. Further research is needed and it is being contracted for by
P.P. & L. covering growth and survival of various tree species.
New areas of our cooperative research include determining plant
material which, in addition to being able to survive in this unique
environment, can be planted by mechanical processes. Experi-
ments with some grasses have not been successful to date. Research
is also being conducted on materials such as crown vetch which would
become a catalytic agent for other plant material by supplying nitro-
gen-fixing bacteria.
This research work has cost P.P. & L. $75,000 to date. We feel
the Northeastern Forest Experiment Station of the U.S. Department
of Agriculture is doing an outstanding job in working on the specific
problems relating to the anthracite area. We recommend the de-
partment be utilized in other problem areas.
In conclusion, our experience indicates that, wherever possible,
there is real merit in having local people made a part of local recla-
mation and beautification projects.
Mr. COLLINS. In considering land reclamation and restora-
tion in our two countries it is necessary to appreciate the contrasting
conditions. Although the land area of the United States of America
is nearly 40 times that of the United Kingdom, the population is only
3J/2 times greater. Thus, the density of population in the United
Kingdom is over 10 times that of the United States of America.
Whilst, therefore, the problems of land conservation are similar,
the scale is different.
It is largely this difference in scale which led to the passing of our
first Town and Country Planning Act in 1947. Broadly speaking,
the effect of this and subsequent acts is that the permission of the
local planning authority is required for any new development in-
volving the use of land. Because planning authorities can impose
conditions on land use, it is possible to obtain some degree of control
over both the siting and the development of new buildings and in-
RECLAMATION OF THE LANDSCAPE 325
dustries. This has led to the creation of greenbelts in and around
our cities and the cessation of ribbon development, which is the
extension of industrial and domestic building along the frontages of
the main roads from our towns. In particular, planning control has
helped to minimize the effects of dumping and excavation which
have in the past been major causes of dereliction in the United
Kingdom and it is dereliction that I would particularly like to talk
about today.
In 1963, His Royal Highness, the Duke of Edinburgh, called a
conference representative of organizations in Great Britain vitally
concerned with land preservation and conservation to discuss the
theme: "The Countryside in 1970." At this conference I repre-
sented the National Goal Board and I presented two papers outlining
the land restoration work which followed open-cast or strip mining
of coal. A number of recommendations were made and progress
with these is to be considered at a further conference to be held in
October this year. It is therefore with considerable interest that I
attend this White House conference.
It seems to me that if conservation is to be effective, the first essen-
tial is general acceptance of the fact that in these days of rapid
change, the control of land use, and particularly of dereliction, is
equally as important as many of the other forms of control to which
we are all subject. If this is accepted there appear to be two main
tasks: (1) to obtain a suitable measure of control over what we
do in the future and (2) to clean up the legacy of the past.
As to what is a suitable measure of control, the needs may vary
in our two countries because of the difference in scale which I men-
tioned earlier. In the United Kingdom, for instance, with a popula-
tion of 53 million, we have 70,000 square miles only of agricultural
land. It is certain, too, that between now and the year 2000 the
quantity of land in use for industry, housing, services and so on will
increase considerably. The pressure on our land is therefore much
greater than it is in the U.S.A. For this reason we probably require
a somewhat greater degree of control than may be necessary here.
In Great Britain the mining industry has been responsible for more
land desecration than any other industry and the National Goal
Board has been faced with the problem of derelict land in all coal-
fields in the country. Deep mining of coal leaves its scars of waste
dumps and subsidence damage to land and property. Strip mining
of coal causes loss of amenity whilst the operation is in progress but
leaves no permanent scars. However, coal represents only about 4
326 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
percent of all strip mining, iron ore, sand, gravel, and clay being
responsible for the balance of the 200 million tons of mineral pro-
duced annually from surface mining.
With regard to the deep mining of coal, it has been possible to
mitigate any surface damage caused by subsidence, in some cases
by back-filling underground, and also by what we call harmonic
extraction of the coal seams which so limits the stresses set up in
surface buildings that damage is obviated despite a lowering of the
surface. Special structural precautions are normally taken with
new buildings on land liable to mining subsidence.
Work is also proceeding to eliminate the ugliness of waste dumps.
Some of the material is used for brickmaking and vast quantities
have been removed for the construction of new motorways. We are
now contemplating the use of this waste material for the manufacture
of aggregate used in concrete constructions. Where it is not possible
to utilize the waste material, much work is being done in contouring
the dumps in conformity with the surrounding countryside. Experi-
ments are in hand for planting the contoured dumps with suitable
trees.
In strip mining the land has always been completely restored ever
since this form of coal mining was started in 1942. This not only
involves filling the final void, which can sometimes be extremely
expensive, but we have to strip and segregate subsoil and topsoil.
When the site has been regraded and the soil replaced, fences are
erected, ditches are dug, and the land is then given a 5 -year course
of agricultural rehabilitation by the Ministry of Agriculture on behalf
of the National Coal Board. This includes intensive fertilization
and the installation of tile drainage. The average cost of this restora-
tion, excluding the filling of the final void, is in the order of $1 per
ton of coal extracted. This may well seem high to my mining friends
in the U.S.A., but even after meeting this cost we still manage to
make a profit of about $2 per ton on our strip-mined coal.
In an endeavor to improve our restoration even further and to
enable us to screen our operations from view when working close
to housing or major roads, we have in the past two years been using
mechanical equipment designed and developed in the United States
of America for transplanting semi -mature trees. (We are par-
ticularly indebted to the Civic Trust who pioneered semi-mature
tree transplanting in Great Britain and to the authorities of the Mor-
ton Arboretum near Chicago for the know-how of the system.)
RECLAMATION OF THE LANDSCAPE 327
This is not a planning requirement, but something we have instituted
ourselves in order to reduce the impact of strip mining on the
countryside.
It is now generally accepted in the United Kingdom that, al-
though our strip mining operations are unsightly during the working
of a site, we do restore the land surface often in an improved con-
dition. For example, one site in Scotland, containing between 25
and 30 million tons of coal, was useless bogland when we started
strip mining five years ago. When complete there will be made avail-
able 350 acres of good agricultural land; already part of the site has
been restored and sheep are grazing on the grassland. In addition,
we will construct a landscaped lake which will provide recreation
in the form of sailing and fishing. In other cases we have provided
golf courses and sports fields for use of the local people who had
been temporarily affected by our strip mining operations.
Turning now to the question of past dereliction, although again
the scale is undoubtedly different, we are, I feel, on common ground
in that much of the dereliction in both countries probably tends to
be concentrated in the older industrial areas, many of which were
developed with little or no regard to the environmental needs of the
people who lived and worked there. I cannot help feeling that
in areas such as this, properly planned reclamation offers us an
opportunity to go some way towards bringing these areas back into
line with life in the second half of the 20th century an opportunity
to cut adrift from the old ideas of concentrated urban sprawl, and to
bring the countryside back into our urban districts so that beauty
can in fact become part of our daily life.
There is little doubt that where dereliction occurs in areas of high
population it can have a serious effect on both the social and economic
life of those areas. When environment deteriorates the social,
sometimes the economic structure tends to deteriorate with it.
Fortunately, with modern earthmoving and tree-transplanting
techniques, we have the means of carrying out reclamation on a
scale and at a speed which were undreamed of at the beginning
of this century. We have the means, and our generation will be
judged by the use we make of them. The answer in both our coun-
tries almost certainly lies in how much we are prepared to spend
today for the benefit of those who will follow us.
Mr. DAVISON. The largest of the extractive industries in terms
of tons produced are the sand and gravel and the crushed stone
328 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
industries. Currently, their combined production is about 1J/2 bil-
lion tons annually. It is anticipated, on the basis of trends since
the close of World War II, that by 1970 production will be some-
where between 1 % and 2 billion tons annually. By far the largest
portions of these minerals are used for concrete for all types of
structures; for bases; slabs and surfaces of highways and streets;
and for the repair and resurfacing of highways and streets. While
they are of fairly wide occurrence, many deposits are not suitable
for construction use because of poor quality, nonresistance to weather-
ing or traffic abrasion, or because of unsuitable gradation.
Sand, gravel, and stone used as construction aggregates must be
produced near the points of use as they are heavy-loading, low-value
materials. The average length of haul by rail is about 80 miles;
the average length of haul by water is about 35 miles; hauls by
truck, now accounting for about 80 percent of the transportation of
these commodities, rarely exceed 30 to 35 miles. The major portion
of production must of necessity occur within or on the fringes of
metropolitan areas where construction is concentrated.
The competition for land in such areas has become, without ques-
tion, the most serious problem faced by a majority of the commercial
producers of aggregates, and the situation can only become increas-
ingly critical. Mr. Dennis O'Harrow, Executive Director of the
American Society of Planning Officials, in an address to the National
Sand & Gravel Association entitled, "The Urban Future," projected
that the 1 00 million people expected to be added to our urban popu-
lation in about the next 30 years will need urban facilities equivalent
to 2 */2 to 3 times the present facilities of the well-known "megalop-
olis" extending along the eastern seaboard from Boston to Wash-
ington. He further said :
To get quantitative about land : our experience shows that for each
person added to the population of an urban area, about one-quarter
acre is converted from nonurban to urban use. For our basic 100
million (additional) urban population we shall need 57,500 square
miles of land, slightly more land than there is in the entire State of
Illinois.
Some projections of sand and gravel demand, which I believe
to be reasonable, have indicated that, whereas production from the
close of World War II to the present has totaled a little over 7.1
billion tons, demand could total nearly 10/ 2 billion tons in the next
ten years, and an additional 14 billion tons in the succeeding ten
RECLAMATION OF THE LANDSCAPE 329
years. Crushed stone demand for concrete and roadstone purposes
alone runs at about 50 percent of sand and gravel demand, and there
is presently no reason to expect much change in that relation. In
short, it is reasonably predictable that production of these construc-
tion aggregates in the next 20 years will be 3 to 85/2 times what it
has been in the last 1 9 years.
As might be expected, where most marketing areas are generally
limited to an area within 30 to 50 miles of the site of extraction, the
degree of criticalness of presently available reserves varies widely
across the country. Some limited information available to the Na-
tional Sand & Gravel Association has indicated that reserves of sand
and gravel held or controlled by a representative sample of producers
have an average remaining life at recent rates of production ranging
from over 40 years in Alabama and Mississippi to about six years in
Connecticut and Minnesota. In the Los Angeles metropolitan
area one of the largest construction markets in the world reliable
testimony before a California legislative committtee pointed out the
probability that every acre zoned for sand and gravel extraction
at the time of the investigation would be depleted by 1975. It was
testified that known deposits near those presently being worked could
add about 15 years' supply if zoning authority will protect these
additional areas from encroachment and permit extraction. Other-
wise, it was estimated, transportation from more remote areas into
this urban construction market will probably add in excess of $70
million a year to construction costs in the area.
The public interest requires economical and orderly development
of all natural resources the surface of the land the water the
minerals. Orderly development needs recognition by all interests
the public, conservation people, planning people, and the extractive
industries of the benefits of planning for multiple use of land.
Multiple use allows extraction of the mineral values followed by
preparation of the land for any number of facilities and uses park-
land, recreation areas, homes, commercial and industrial establish-
ments, sewage plants, water reservoirs, and to the alarm of many
people sanitary landfills. Many companies in the sand and gravel
and crushed stone industries have in the past and are now accom-
plishing suitable afteruse, not only in recognition of a public duty,
but also to the operators' economic benefit.
Just a word about sanitary landfills. The proper disposal of the
tremendous amounts of solid refuse generated by urban-suburban
complexes is becoming increasingly expensive and critical. Con-
330 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
trolled and well-supervised disposal in depleted pits can bring pit
areas back to surrounding grade levels and can then be followed by
building construction or recreation uses. A good example near
Washington can be seen along the Shirley Highway in Fairfax
County, Va., where a large operation in steel warehousing and fab-
rication has been erected on a landfill in a depleted sand and gravel
pit. In the Los Angeles area many sand and gravel pits are 125 feet
deep and are still above ground water. The only feasible way to
bring these areas back into use is through filling with refuse. Incin-
eration of refuse is not used in this area because of air-pollution
problems. The State of California is now conducting a research
project in one of these deep pits at Azusa in southern California to
investigate the effects on ground water of refuse decomposition and
methods of control.
I have said that many producers of construction aggregates plan
and carry out multiple use of their land. It must be admitted that
a great many do not. Unless these operations are in remote areas
they can and should be required to prepare their land for afteruse
of some sort. With something like two-thirds of all commercial sand
and gravel operations taking place in areas subject to some form of
local or regional planning authority, we have in existence a means
of influencing the multiple use of aggregate-bearing lands. The
local industry and planning authorities can outline such lands and
protect them by regulation for a suitable number of years from
encroachment by other uses not now in existence in those lands.
At the same time, appropriate standards of operation setbacks,
area screening, control of noise, dust and vibration should be en-
acted for the protection of the public and surrounding properties,
and compliance with such regulations can be made a condition for
continued operation. Standards for reforming the land to appropri-
ate afteruses can be outlined in the regulation and covered by bond-
ing requirements. There are, over the country, a number of in-
stances where cooperation of the industry and professional planners
has accomplished equitable regulation conforming to a broad public
purpose such as I have outlined.
In 1955 when the National Sand & Gravel Association established
a program on public relations, a significant number of member com-
panies had already been engaged in planned reclamation as a regular
part of their operation, some for over 30 years prior to that time.
The Association program has concentrated on two major objectives :
RECLAMATION OF THE LANDSCAPE 331
1. To persuade all operators to follow the examples of these pio-
neering companies.
2. To point out to the planning profession the economic necessity
for the extraction of sand and gravel and to help them provide con-
trols for operation and reclamation which will protect the public
interest and with which the industry can live.
We believe we have achieved a measure of success on both counts.
We believe that the continuance of this program will make a con-
tribution to the objectives of this conference.
Representative OTTINGER. Anyone who has ever tackled the job
of selling conservation concepts to people on a practical level,
knows that you have one very difficult problem to overcome. The
average person tends to regard conservation as a laudable, but
not very practical battle of the poets and the dreamers against busi-
nessmen and engineers. Like the golden rule, they feel that every-
body's for it, but nobody can afford it.
As a very practical politician, a former attorney for businessmen
and an aspiring conservationist, I find this very frustrating. Worse,
it is a clear indication that the important first steps toward the "new"
conservation so eloquently advocated by the President have little
chance of winning broad support unless we can counter this patron-
izing attitude with facts and figures. I am convinced that the facts
and figures can be developed and that they will support the "new"
conservation overwhelmingly.
I urge, therefore, that the first responsibility of each panel of this
conference is to call for practical economic definitions. We are
here to seek action to conserve, restore, and develop very valuable
resources. Before we get too far along the road discussing what we
hope to see accomplished, we had better be prepared to explain
clearly and succinctly why it needs doing and how it will enrich the
life and economy of the Nation.
It is a commonplace of conservation to refer to the values of
scenic conservation as an intangible, and impossible to measure in
dollars and cents. I submit that this is nonsense. We simply have
never really tried.
For many years, planners and potential exploiters sought to use
the land reserved in Central Park for a variety of purposes. They
lamented the lost revenue to the city. They complained that the
land was useless and not contributing. I would very much like
to see the real estate values and tax revenues around Central Park
779-595 65 ,22
332 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
compared with those at other less beautiful points in the city. I
would like to see a balance sheet that showed what the park has cost
against what it has contributed to the city, just in dollar and cents
values alone, leaving out the qualitative pleasures the park brings to
the people who enjoy it.
President Johnson said that beauty "is one of the most important
components of our true national income. 53 I am sure that he is
right. I am also sure that this can be shown, and that when it is
shown, our job will be very much easier.
In his natural beauty message, the President also pointed to some
of the costs of blight. Safety and physical and mental health were
among the factors he mentioned. I believe he might have added tax
revenues, property values, police costs, juvenile delinquency costs,
and some social welfare expenses, as well. The subject needs serious
expert analysis to develop economic guidelines dollars and cents
comparisons that will help people to see that what is good is also
profitable.
Let me cite just one other example of the sort of thing I'm looking
for. Wouldn't it be helpful in talking about reclaiming the blight
of abandoned open pit mines, such as the trap rock quarry in Mount
Taurus in New York, if we could show how such blights detract from
property values and how, and by how much, economic benefits have
accrued to other areas from rehabilitation of landscape in similar
situations?
Conservation discussions are traditionally conducted on such a
high plane that such practical matters now seem a little crass. But
we must not be ashamed to bring the discussion to this level. If we
need to be ashamed of anything at all, it's our past failure to do so.
When our reserves of water or helium or other valuable natural
resources are threatened, we prepare for a campaign of conservation
with an exhaustive economic analysis. Scenic assets are no less valu-
able and no less jeopardized ; they deserve no less attention.
When faced with a conflict between industrial or commercial
demands and the demands of conservation, someone is always saying,
"Well, you can't block progress." I want to be sure we all know
what real progress is.
If we are going to launch the needed programs to achieve a more
beautiful America, we are going to have to enlist a broad popular
support behind the banner, and high-sounding phrases alone won't
doit.
RECLAMATION OF THE LANDSCAPE 333
Now there is another very practical reason for preparing an eco-
nomic basis for our "War on Ugliness" in America. This is a gigantic
campaign. The number of panels gathered here today is only a
partial recognition of the size of the challenge.
However, the conservation of our government's financial resources
is also an important concern and, if we are to make a significant
dent in the problem at a reasonable public cost, we must establish
a program of priorities and assign specific responsibilities.
I think the topic before us today, Reclamation of the Landscape,
is a good working ground for developing such a program. In re-
claiming landscape we are faced with a wide variety of problems.
Some are longstanding ills like the abandoned open pit mines of
Pennsylvania and West Virginia and the rock quarries in my own
State. These are serious and ugly blights, and they must be rehabili-
tated. But, they are, nonetheless, fixed historic problems whose in-
fluence is largely static and not spreading.
I would submit that action to correct these static blights must rest
primarily on the State, with Federal participation only if a State is
unwilling to undertake effective reclamation.
This means that we will have to evolve standards of acceptable
land use and determine the basis on which the funds will be disbursed.
Is our concept of landscape restoration to include commercial use
of the land? Of course, but where and how critical are the ques-
tions, and what balance should be struck between commercial values
and landscape values, economic and aesthetic?
In the past we have tended to concentrate our conservation efforts
in the wilderness. We have made significant strides in preserving
the glories of our underdeveloped lands. Now we must turn our
faces to conservation in our settled areas. As President Johnson
said: "A growing population is swallowing up areas of natural
beauty. ..."
This is an infinitely more difficult problem with which to cope.
Everyone could agree with saving Grand Canyon and Yellowstone
National Parks. There were few economic interests involved and
very little conflict. New conservation involves economic conflicts
that go to the very heart of our modern society and the pressures
will be tremendous.
The President also said: "The same society which receives the
rewards of technology, must, as a cooperating whole, take responsi-
bility for control." I believe he has recognized that our existing
334 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
government structure is not geared for this battle, and that we will
need to create a new mechanism.
The basic principle of the new conservation is the conserving and
developing of natural resources for people as against the classical
concept of protecting resources from people. In this light, I would
hope that we would consider first, the restoration of landscape that
best serves people. I would hope to see categories defined rather
explicitly and justified in sound economic analysis.
Where we are contemplating the creation of housing or controlled
industrial parks, some of the necessary financial authority is avail-
able through Housing and Home Finance Agency programs. Where
recreation is a goal, it may be that authorization is available under
the Land and Water Conservation Fund. There are similar author-
ties in the agricultural appropriations for soil conservation and
reforestation. But the program that we are envisioning today even
in the areas covered by existing legislation will eventually require
expenditures so much greater than are now available, that the project
appears to assume the proportions of a wholly new program.
One very important element is not covered in many of the existing
programs, and I think it is a key element : landscape rehabilitation
for the economic and other human benefits that a scenic asset can
contribute. Because we have never set an economic value on this,
it has always been treated as a secondary issue and the results have
been disastrous.
Now we are at a point on which we cannot afford to be fuzzy.
Just to get the Federal Government involved in effective action
on this problem is going to require specific legislation. We will have
to extend to landscape rehabilitation the same cooperative concept
that has recently been enunciated for recreation facilities in the
Land and Water Conservation Fund and for urban renewal in the
Housing Act of 1965.
To do this we will probably have to establish an authority similar
to HHFA to review conditions of blight and evaluate State programs
for dealing with them. I am going to suggest later some other func-
tions of a quasi-judicial nature that such an authority should be
granted. But at this time I am talking about the minimum neces-
sary to deal with this specific problem of static, historic blight
through cooperative programs with the States.
Two difficulties with the suggestion can be met right here. First,
we will almost certainly run into the automatic objection that many
RECLAMATION OF THE LANDSCAPE 335
of the functions of an authority such as I am proposing are already
performed to one degree or another by a wide variety of Federal
agencies, authorities, commissions, etc. I would point out that
this very multiplicity of responsibility in itself is one of the best rea-
sons for establishing a single uniform authority. You need only
to look at the results of Federal participation in State planning
where scenic assets have been a secondary consideration to rec-
ognize the weakness of the present system. Then, too, I would point
out that many important scenic concerns fall into the cracks be-
tween existing Federal programs.
A second objection might be that the Interior Department has
been traditionally vested with conservation responsibilities. I would
point out that the department's interests in conservation are mani-
fold and not always consistent with advancing scenic beauty. For
example, the programs of the Bureau of Mines often involve balanc-
ing scenic assets in a context weighted to other economic considera-
tions. Wherever you are treating a subject like landscape as a sec-
ondary consideration, you run the considerable risk that the scenic
asset will lose. Those familiar with recent history might prefer
to substitute "certainty" for "risk". Then, too, many of the scenic
problems faced fall entirely outside the Interior Department's area
of competence and under the jurisdiction of other agencies such
as the Federal Power Commission and the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers.
Traditionally in our government, where the problem became so
pressing and the interests so confused as those we face today, we
have often solved our dilemma through the creation of an independ-
ent commission.
When the problems of trade came to require special attention, we
established the Federal Trade Commission outside the Commerce
Department. When there was a critical need to create power re-
sources, we set up the Federal Power Commission outside the In-
terior Department. We have dealt with housing, communications,
and a variety of other problems through modifications of this concept.
Except where these commissions have attempted to expand their
mandate unsuitably or tried to overreach themselves, they have
functioned superbly and have successfully dealt with problems not
dissimilar to the problem we are facing here today.
There is another aspect of scenic blight that is even more trouble-
some than these historic conditions of static blight. This is the
336 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
blight of epidemic proportions that results from industrialization,
commercial expansion, urbanization and population movement and
growth. Almost invariably this blight is associated with processes
that play an important economic role in the life of people. Whether
it is from power lines, superhighways, housing subdivisions, continu-
ing mining operations or ill-placed industrial facilities, these threats
to our national beauty cannot just be eliminated. More often than
not, the problem is national in scope. Not infrequently financial
interests too big for State governments to control are involved. In
many cases the answer to the problem will not be immediately forth-
coming and considerable research will be required.
The Bureau of Mines now has a group that sets standards for the
health and safety of miners. This resulted from public concern over
the plight of miners. The research section of the Bureau does put
out reports for mine operators on new techniques that would help
with conservation of mine areas, but there is no enforcement of policy.
Their responsibility, they say, is only to encourage rather than to set
standards.
Again, high-tension powerlines knifing through our finest residen-
tial areas and our scenic open spaces, destroy approximately 30
acres for every mile of line. Scenic damage extends to as much as
300 acres for every line mile.
The Interior Department and the Federal Power Commission
have been concerned about the problem, but little or no research
has been done to compare the costs in loss of land value and added
costs of maintenance against the costs of putting these lines under-
ground or underwater. In fact, in a recent effort to gather material
for constituents concerned over proposed lines, I discovered that the
data available from these Federal agencies came almost entirely from
an industry source that was admittedly opposed to underground lines.
Clearly, we will get no progress here until we separate the consid-
erable economic interests that are involved by independent review.
To initiate and carry out the research that is necessary to meet
problems such as this, we will need a broader and more effective
long-range planning and national coordination effort than is now
available.
The practical solution would be an independent commission that
can conduct and contract for research and can draw upon the con-
siderable expertise and experience available at the Federal level.
Such a commission would be charged with laying down guidelines
RECLAMATION OF THE LANDSCAPE 337
and implementing national policy in rehabilitating and preserving
the landscape. It could provide an effective mechanism to balance
the important competing economic interests involved.
The concept that underlies such a commission is not too far from
that which resulted in the formation of the Resources Program staff
of the Department of the Interior.
But advice and consultation are not enough to meet this challenge
and there are jobs to do that require a high degree of independent
action.
I have now proposed a commission charged with three important
and interlocking functions. First, it would work on cooperative pro-
grams with the States in correcting static scenic blight. Second,
it would work on the national level developing better methods for
correcting and avoiding the epidemic blight. Third, it would report
to Congress and recommend legislation necessary to turn that re-
search into effective action and would implement such policy as Con-
gress prescribes.
There is a fourth function that is equally important for such a com-
mission and that is the quasi- judicial function of acting as fiscal arbiter
of Federal incursions on natural beauty.
The worst single offender against scenic resources today is the
Federal Government itself. Through such organs of national policy
as the Bureau of Public Roads, the Federal Power Commission, the
General Services Administration, the Atomic Energy Commission
and a host of others, endless violations of the American landscape
are approved and carried out.
The superhighways that are planned with strict attention to eco-
nomics of motion, often ignore the economics of beauty and space.
Power line decisions are made on the basis of the efficiency and cost
of power alone, disregarding the cost of ruining the landscape. In
such decisions beauty will always suffer as long as we are not able to
set a comparable value on it, and you can hardly blame an agency
that is charged with promoting power or highway development for
regarding beauty as the expendable element, even where the margin
of difference is mils. As they see it, that's their job.
The commission I am proposing should be vested with sufficient
force of law to guarantee that scenic resources and their implica-
tions for health, welfare, and economics will be considered adequately
in all Federal actions. This would include projects constructed as
well as those licensed by Federal agencies and also projects to which
Federal funds are applied.
338 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
Of course, certain specialized problems will obviously require im-
mediate action within the framework of our existing law. The
President's Appalachian program contains much that should come
to grips with blights such as the concentrated strip mining of that
region has produced. For particularly neglected natural rivers
there is the Hudson Highlands National Scenic River bill, which I
introduced, and the Potomac program. These both involve new
concepts of conservation that may prove helpful in the broadened
war on ugliness.
In providing increased Federal incentives and controls to pre-
serve scenic values, the private sector requires particular attention.
I am now drafting and will soon submit a National Underground
Powerline Act which will provide significant incentives to utility
companies to put their lines underground. It will also provide for
research and development activities coordinated by the Department
of the Interior. However, I would look with favor on developments
that would enable us to transfer this function to an independent
commission that could draw upon the experience and expertise of
the Federal Power Commission, Interior and private companies and
coordinate this program with other similar national conservation
drives.
I have introduced similar legislation to give private companies an
incentive to install anti-water pollution devices, and other pending
legislation provides money for research and incentives for air pollu-
tion control.
Today, we are faced with the possible loss of valuable scenic and
landscape resources of great economic value to our people. Once
gone, these resources will be truly irreplaceable and in addition to
the economic assets that will be lost, something very important will
have gone from our American way of life.
We have arrived at a point in our national development at which
we need to rethink our entire approach to economic questions in-
volving scenic values. In the 1920's and 1930's, when the industry
of our Nation was starving for want of power, we created the Federal
Power Commission. We vested this Commission with unusual au-
thority to use our lands in promoting the development of power in
the Nation. Earlier in the 1 9th century, in a much less sophisticated
way, we did the same thing for our railroads and other utilities. The
development of the Nation over this time is a credit to the wisdom of
the policy and policymakers.
RECLAMATION OF THE LANDSCAPE 339
Perhaps now we have even arrived at the point where we should
consider vesting an independent commission with similar powers to
protect and promote our valuable and vanishing scenic resources.
Such commissions are common in other countries facing similar prob-
lems. I well remember the lament of one of the great conservationists
of the Hudson Valley when he heard that a beautiful scenic area
was about to be desecrated with an ugly industrial installation. They
told him that the government could halt this desecration only if it
could be proved the site qualified as a national monument.
"In France," he said, "they declare a view a national monument."
He has a point. Our views are disappearing. Our vistas are
being destroyed. And we are very much the poorer for it.
If we were ever a Nation that could dig and cut and then just
move on, we certainly are not that Nation today.
Mr. CAUDILL. The southern Appalachians are so beautiful that
they mask the poverty of their inhabitants. The loveliness of the
steep hills and narrow valleys must be experienced to be appreciated.
Tragically, their loveliness has rarely been respected by the people
who live there or by the corporations which own the immense
mineral wealth.
Part of Appalachia is the Cumberland plateau, notorious for the
destitution of its inhabitants. Until 6 or 8 years ago the 16 miles
between Cumberland in Harlan County, Ky., and Eolia Post Office
was an enchanting drive. U.S. Highway 119 lies parallel to the Poor
Fork of the Cumberland, then crystal clear and dotted with deep
fish-filled potholes. The valley is narrow. On the north lies the
long ridge of the Pine Mountain, its crest rising craggy and pic-
turesque. To the south is the much higher and more massive Big
Black Mountain. This mountain contains some of the richest and
thickest coal deposits in North America. Near Eolia Post Office,
the Poor Fork bubbles out of the earth and starts its long journey to
the sea. A few miles away on the other side of the Pine Mountain,
the Kentucky and the Big Sandy Rivers have their sources, flowing
northward to the Ohio. The Cumberland trickles westward, even-
tually reaching the Tennessee.
During much of the year the crest of the Big Black is veiled in
cloud wisps. Deep hollows cut its ancient sides. Its coves and points
were once heavily timbered. In the spring wild flowers rioted in its
black loam. In the autumn after the first dash of frost its forests
flamed in every color of the rainbow. The farmers who cultivated
340 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
the sandy bottoms, the coal miners who followed the highway to
the portals of the U.S. Coal and Coke Corp.'s mines, and the oc-
casional traveler who wandered into the valley could feast their
eyes on a remarkable panorama of unspoiled natural beauty.
In the last half dozen years the valley has been shattered. A
subsidiary of the world's biggest steel corporation decided to strip
mine the outcrop coal in the three rich seams that striate the huge
hill. Bulldozers, power shovels, and dynamite cut towering "high-
walls" into the rugged slopes. The machines and explosives gouged
and slashed the mountain for more than 20 winding miles, following
the contour of the terrain into the deep coves and around the sharp
points. In some places the cuts rose 90 feet straight up as high as
a nine-story building. Like monstrous yellow serpents they looped
themselves over the land, one near the base of the mountain, another
mid-way up, and a third near the top.
The rubble dislodged from the immense excavations was flung
down the hillsides. The trees, the delicate flowers, the ancient ferns,
the moss covered rocks the entire ecology of an ancient natural
system was buried by avalanches of broken rock and millions of
tons of dirt, waste coal, and shale.
Like huge aprons these spoilbanks extend downward. Each
hollow is filled with unstable spoil. A mining engineer has estimated
that between 500,000 and 1 million tons of such residue were flung
into each of the coves. Predictably, rain pelted the spoil banks and
winter freezing and thawing loosened them. In gentle showers and
lashing storms the dirt and the stone and the shale moved downward
into the river bed. The crystalline creek which had sparkled for
millennia turned yellow and turbid. The waterholes disappeared
and were replaced with heaps of mud and stones. The banks of
the stream turned black.
Occasionally a mammoth landslide sent avalanches sweeping
across a farm or into a home. Much damage was done to the city
of Lynch when a landslide piled mud a yard deep in living rooms, on
lawns, sidewalks, streets, and public roads.
U.S. Coal and Coke Corp. sent its bulldozers to dredge the river.
They pushed great accumulations of spoil out of the main channel
and left it lying in parallel levees on either side. Thus the river,
once the cool, pleasant habitat of some of the gamest fresh water fish
in the world, became little more than a smooth-bottomed trough
RECLAMATION OF THE LANDSCAPE 341
down which water could move quickly after each rain. The natural
ecology of the waterway was destroyed for many miles.
The corporation that wrought this damage made a gesture at
reclamation. Pine seeds were scattered in some areas and in others
tiny seedlings were planted. In some of the mining flats fescue
seeds were scattered and some of them took root.
But the blasted slopes lie yellow and dead. The loose dirt has
gone downstream to silt other areas and the hollows are filled with
the stone and the desolation. The spoilbanks are almost perpen-
dicular because the mountain on which they lie is extremely steep,
a fact that may rule out forever any effective effort at reclamation.
To reclaim the spoilbanks the slopes must be kept in situ until vege-
tation can be caused to grow, and in a region with nearly 50 inches
of rainfall annually such retention of the soil cannot occur. It is
as though loose dirt was placed on the sloping side of a tin roof and
expected somehow to remain there under the pelting rains until
vegetation could take root.
Thousands of people have been horrified by the spectacle of this
blighted valley. The corporation which extracted the coal has
reaped a bumper harvest of public ill will. In my opinion, the
board of directors who authorized this act committed a major offense
against America. If a man loves America the Beautiful and sees
this wrecked and ravaged land, the gouged-out creekbed, this fishless
stream, he must feel revulsion for the recklessness, the greed, and the
barbarity of an industrial manager who would wreck a valley for
a bit of cheap fuel.
I cannot believe these men to be wicked, but their folly, their
cupidity, their disregard for natural beauty is monumentalized by
the mountain they killed. Soon the Applachian development pro-
gram will reconstruct U.S. 1 19 as a major north-south highway and
countless tourists travelling between Florida and the Great Lakes
will pass their monument. Most of them will blame a great corpo-
ration for the despoliation of this lovely corner of America.
The point here is that, whatever the situation may be in the flat
coalfields of America, strip mining on steep mountainous terrain is
wholly inconsistent with the preservation of natural beauty and the
natural balance of life. Restoration to anything approaching the
original situation is out of the question. The land is too steep, the
rainfall is too heavy, the spoil is too unstable for real reclamation
to occur. If the land is to be preserved, if the natural beauty is to
342 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
survive, reclamation must occur in advance, simply by prohibiting
the ruin. Government can enforce such prohibition, or an enlight-
ened business community including the men and corporations
which own the minerals can resort to other methods of extraction.
If necessary, they can wait until new techniques make possible
their recovery by means which permit the continued usefulness of
the land. Our affluent society should not be so hungry for cheap
fuel as to purchase it at a cost so dear.
Whether the Appalachian coalfields will be preserved in their
ancient natural splendor for the enjoyment of many generations
of Americans yet unborn or reduced within the coming generation
to a wasteland is a question that addresses itself to this conference.
It addresses itself to the boardrooms of scores of great corporations
and the consciences of American shareholders. The conventional
working of economic and corporate decisions provides a momentum
far too big to be matched by local county governments or even
State statutes. Only a national conscience and a Federal strength
of purpose can effectively meet the issue. And as the destruction
spreads across Appalachia, the hills, the hollows, the streams, the
fish, and the wildlife of the yet unravaged lands await the answer.
And the future will judge the answer as long as there is an America.
Mr. MOTT. I believe that each of you recognize in the comments
made by the various panelists the problems that exist and you were
told of several solutions : local tree planting through civic conscience
of the people living in the area ; of total government control as prac-
ticed in the United Kingdom; industry recognizing the problem
and developing ideas and setting up criteria for its members to fol-
low; Federal, State, and local cooperation in solving the problem,
and Federal leadership and research.
These are some of the solutions for solving this complicated prob-
lem. We are dealing with an industry that is essential to the economy
of the United States, but I am convinced that there must be and
will be solutions to this problem.
Questions and Discussion
Mr. DAVISON. Mr. Collins, you said that reclamation costs now
are averaging in the neighborhood of $1 a ton. Do you have any
idea what percentage of the pithead price of coal that would be in
the United Kingdom, as an average?
RECLAMATION OF THE LANDSCAPE 343
Mr. COLLINS. One-tenth of the price.
Mr. PYLES. Mr. Collins is here from the British Isles. We might
ask him some more questions. Why in the United Kingdom do
you strip for coal ? Why don't you deep mine altogether?
Mr. COLLINS. Strip mining of coal relatively near the surface is
far more economical than deep mining. It is as simple as that.
STEPHEN COLBY. First, Dr. Bramble suggests empirical observa-
tions in the field constitute an in-depth study; this is not true. Em-
pirical observation is only the first step in a long series of steps for
in-depth studies. Much further thought is needed to describe in-
depth study.
Second, in regards to Route 119 and other highways, at least in
terms of recreational values one can move a highway or use cos-
metic measures to control undesirable scenery.
Third, if, when stressing recreation and not pollution control
values, the spoil banks are not necessarily unsightly if they are prop-
erly planted. In southern Illinois, the spoil banks, on which trees
and other things are planted, constitute some of our most interesting
landscapes. In some areas, such as central Illinois, the barren spoil
banks (by creating contrasting scenery to the beautiful monotony of
the cornfields) can represent a highly desirable and interesting feature
of the landscape.
Fourth, rehabilitation of the landscape should not be limited to
coal mines but should include other works of man; such as gas sta-
tions, restaurants, motels, billboards, and any other unsightly blemish
to the landscape.
Fifth, with proper planning and by describing what has been done
and what is to be done to return the scenic resource to the production
of beauty, an explanational turnout and overlook can partially allevi-
ate the unfavorable impact of unsightly scars caused in resource de-
velopment such as forest clearcutting and mine spoil banks.
Sixth, for the Congressman, I have one suggestion. Any Federal
spending program should not penalize State, local, and private agen-
cies that undertook initiatory compliance (to place a program in
operation with non-Federal funds before the Federal Government
originates its program) by making grants to those communities
who are not foresighted.
For example, Chicago has the best sanitary district anywhere in
the world primarily financed through local funds, as are those in
344 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
many other cities and towns. Yet, I understand the Federal Govern-
ment is subsidizing sanitation programs for areas like Huntington,
W. Va., and Milwaukee, Wis., that have been notorious in polluting
our streams and lakes without regard for the well-being of others.
Mr. PYLES. One brief comment. By a study in depth, I mean
a team study which would be set up in each State which would be
composed of engineers, soil scientists, hydrologists, foresters, or ecolo-
gists. We proposed such a study in Indiana. The administration
opposed it this year, and it was not approved by the legislature.
KENNETH L. SCHELLIE. I would like to refer to comments Mr.
Davison made about the work being done by the sand and gravel
producers. They have created, as many of you know, some very
fine reclamation projects which have produced some of the finest
recreational areas in the country, many of them water-oriented. I
would also like to point out that the increasing difficulties of opening
up new extractive pits in our metropolitan centers has created some
serious problems for the industry.
It has occurred to us that there appeared to be a common ground,
whereby the need for outdoor recreation space, open space, active
recreation use space, and the needs of industry in producing sand and
gravel close to their markets create a common situation of interest,
both to the industry, the Nation, and to the people interested in
recreation.
Therefore, we have entered into some discussions with the Bu-
reau of Outdoor Recreation regarding a program which will be un-
dertaken jointly by the industry and the Bureau to encourage this type
of operation at urban centers, meeting the growing metropolitan
need of America, both from the standpoint of a building material
and the need for more recreation space at those locations.
MAURICE BARB ASH. I would like to address myself to a problem
we have had in Long Island for the past few months, where a major
sand and gravel concern attempted to win approval for a mining
project along one of the most beautiful bluffs overlooking Long
Island Sound, in the Wading River area of the north shore of Long
Island. The proposal was made then, as has been made by Mr.
Davison, Mr. Collins, and other speakers, that the result might be
better than the product that nature gave us today.
I have heard this proposal made in many other industrial devel-
opments, including the one in an area up on the Hudson River.
RECLAMATION OF THE LANDSCAPE 345
I am very disturbed by all the signs that lead to landscaping being
restored. Aren't we going to have any of the original landscaping
that we have right now? I think it may be high time that the asso-
ciation of sand and gravel firms and the power companies make
their own studies as to what natural resources and features we have
in this country that should be out of their domain for operation. I
think we have to leave some of the original landscaping that we have
today. I know that we cannot possibly restore it, once we have
used it, to the former beauty it had.
STEPHEN DUNN. We represent and speak for the commercial
producers and not the captive producers of the industry, such as the
steel companies. I would like these proceedings to show the con-
structive attitude taken by the bituminous coal industry. They have
worked in this field for many years, not only with skilled technicians
of National Coal but through our new research laboratory near
Pittsburgh, the bituminous coal research center, in seeing the need
for intensifying these efforts to keep up with the times. Recently
a new organization was formed, closely associated with us, known as
the Mined-Land Conservation Conference, of which Mr. Arnold
Lamm is the president.
We enjoy working with government agencies and with local
groups. This has a top priority in our forthcoming 48th anniversary
convention program, and there will be top panelists on this in Chi-
cago, June 13 to 15.
You are all most cordially invited to attend that session.
We have just completed a very important symposium on water
pollution, sponsored by Mellon Institute, our affiliate, Bituminous
Coal Research, and others, and we are working continuously with
land and water use committees and others.
I might say also, we have a new film which shows the work done
in the field of reclamation. It is called "Invisible Power of Coal."
We hope those interested will see it.
A number of very constructive comments have been made by
panel members. You, Mr. Chairman, have pointed out the great
need economically for these industries that are affected. Mr. Pyles
has mentioned the good work done by industry. Dr. Bramble has
pointed out the need for State action and the difficulty of having
a uniform Federal law, and how general Federal regulation might
be impractical or impossible.
346 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
Mr. Stocker certainly has brought out what can be done by private
enterprise. This is where we want to intensify our effort. Our good
friend, Mr. Collins, whom we know very well, has pointed out very
wisely the difference in the factual situation.
ARNOLD E. LAMM. I think panels such as this are very construc-
tive. I think that none of us believe the problem is simple. It is a
very complicated problem, and I think that the help of you gentle-
men in solving these problems is much to be sought after by the
industry. I simply want to explain some of the objectives of the
Mined-Land Conservation Conference.
First of all, we have a voluntary problem of reclamation of land,
which is very extensive. The program is supplemented by a staff
of experts, a technical committee, consisting of ecologists, chemists,
soil experts, people who have been in the land reclamation business
for upward of as much as 40 years, some of them.
Secondly, another purpose of the Mined-Land Conservation Con-
ference is to sponsor intelligent legislation on the part of the States
to solve this problem. We do believe that there are great problems
to Federal legislation, because there are such different objections in-
volved, as Mr. Caudill has pointed out. You have a far different
situation in the plains of Kansas than you have in the mountains of
West Virginia. But we do sponsor intelligent State legislation.
We aid and assist those companies that are financially unable to get
technical assistance.
I want to thank the members of the panel for throwing a great
deal of light on a very complicated and technical subject.
Mr. MOTT. It is my understanding that of the 27 States that are
doing surface mining, 7 of them have legislation that in one way or
another affects rehabilitation. Some of the States use their laws
effectively; in other cases the legislation is there, but it is not effec-
tively used or implemented.
Dr. M. GRAHAM NETTING. A great deal of very fine work is being
done throughout the country in restoration. I have no intention
of criticizing that. But I have gone to a good many meetings and
I have heard people talk about revegetation of spoil banks, who, I
am certain, have never sat on a spoil bank on a hot July day.
Much of the planting of tree seedlings by Boy Scouts, by people
of good will, is excellent exercise for planters, but unsuccessful be-
cause of the species provided. You know that spruces like cool, moist
RECLAMATION OF THE LANDSCAPE 347
conditions. Think of the little spruce tree that is put on one of
these hot spoil banks. In ten years, it may be 18 inches high. And
most of this planting by the way of evergreens is done in a deciduous
forest climate where the large-tooth aspen and the black locust may
grow 10 feet from seed in two years.
I would like to suggest that the people who are doing research on
revegetation take a lead from the highway engineers and blow mix-
tures of fertilizer, of seed, particularly of deciduous trees, straw and
hay on the spoil banks. If a lady gets her shoulders sun burned,
she doesn't put a few beauty patches on them. She covers up the
hot hide. The important thing is to get a fast cover on the hot spoil
banks and then the trees will grow beautifully thereafter. Think of
a spoil surface as a desert environment.
Mrs. CONNIE QUINN. We have a strip mining law which I under-
stand is the most strict or the second most strict in the United States.
And I believe it is being effectively carried out. We also have what
is considered one of the world's largest shovels in our western Ken-
tucky coalfield, and I would like to suggest that the panel make some
type of recommendation to control the type of equipment that is be-
ing made to use in these strip mining areas. I understand that the
firm that has the shovel is now planning one larger than the one it
has now, where it can go in and disturb more acres of coal in one day
than hundreds of men can do in a month.
I would like to ask Mr. Stocker the question about his planting
program on highway screening. Were the trees planted and given
by the State? Did they grow their own trees in their own nursery
or were they bought from private individuals?
Mr. STOCKER. These were bought by our company.
Mrs. QUINN. I would like to find such an angel in Kentucky.
MARTIN HANSON. I would like to put a question to Mr. Caudill.
My city, Mellen, Wis., lies in a valley between two ancient moun-
tain ranges. To the south is the Goegebic iron range, which is con-
trolled by one of our largest steel corporations. The hill and moun-
tains directly south of Mellen have been described as one of the out-
standing ski hill and recreational opportunities in all of the Midwest.
Next week a vice president of this company is coming to our
town and our valley. The same thing will happen that has hap-
pened to your valley. What should we do about it?
779-59565 23
348 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
I would like to further comment that our local people, because of
the economic impact, jobs and such, refuse to do anything, and our
State government has just failed to act. So my question is, what
can be done?
Mr. CAUDILL. Well, if I had the answer, I would be a rich man,
but I think the answer will have to be as distasteful as this may
seem to a great many people at the Federal level. This is a great
Federal problem. The people who are pauperized in the process of
land destruction frequently wind up on the public welfare rolls, and
that is Federal. The mud moves in interstate streams, and that is
Federal. And there is simply lacking, at the local level in a great
many areas, the necessary land ethic to achieve effective action at
the local level or even at the State level, and I can see no real hope
for this kind of situation until the land ethic, if there is one, is brought
to bear in these communities. That must be, in my opinion, the
role of the Federal Government, in one form or another.
LARRY COOK. My job is reclaiming strip mine land, and it has
been for the last 20 years.
I want to pay tribute to the U.S. Forest Service, particularly, in
my area, through the Central States Forest Experiment Station and
to the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station, to Ohio State Univer-
sity, and Kent State University, and to all of the agencies that have
worked with us to find the answers to the reclamation of strip mine
land.
I think we have a lot of the answers. I cannot be on the defensive
here today, because I can show you thousands of acres of beautiful
reclaimed strip mine land.
Unfortunately, we have about 10,000 additional acres every
year. No matter how much we reclaim today, there will be more
to be reclaimed tomorrow.
Mr. Mott, I agree with you that man, in his genius, has constructed
some tremendous equipment 210-ton shovels but he has not dis-
covered how to grow trees faster.
This is a problem time. If we have the time and the money,
we can properly reclaim strip mined land.
Mr. MOTT. The public feels that this is an urgent problem and
that we must get on with solutions as rapidly as possible. Maybe we
should be doing research on how to produce trees that will grow
RECLAMATION OF THE LANDSCAPE 349
faster than we have ever grown them before. I don't think time is
going to wait for us. We will have to move faster.
Mr. COOK. I hope, in order to obtain beauty in a short time, we
do not throw away the value that lies in these lands that a little time
will enable us to realize. We can reclaim these lands to tremendous
value as well as beauty if we are given sufficient time to accomplish it.
WILLIAM VOIGT, JR. One comment, and then one question, if
I may : It was ten years ago, Mr. Pyles, this month, that we spent a
month in the Ohio country that Larry Cook just talked about, looking
over some well reclaimed land, and some that was not well reclaimed.
I feel that we should consider soil textures, local soil and climatic
conditions, as Dr. Netting was saying, when we go in to do the
reclaiming job. But the big problem and the question that I would
like to put has to do with the areas that have been disturbed in
years past by operators who are long dead or departed. I believe
it was a fellow countryman of yours, who some 300-odd years ago
in a book called "The Gompleat Angler," wrote, "What is every-
body's business is nobody's business."
What are we going to do about this nonreclaimed land, unre-
claimed land that is now everybody's business?
Mr. MOTT. Our panel has discussed this problem in its work
sessions quite extensively, and we recognize that the abandoned
or orphaned land presents a special problem. We will make a specific
recommendation with regard to action that should be taken in re-
habilitating orphan or abandoned coal mine areas. We believe the
recommendation makes sense and we will present it at the general
session.
GEORGE SELKE. We have just gone through a series of experiences
in two States, and I would like to call your attention to them. They
deal with the matter of reclamation. I wonder what we are going to
do when nature begins to destroy some of the beauty of the land be-
cause of some indirect acts of man. I sometimes think that nature
does this without any help of mankind. I am thinking of the floods
of the Missouri and the floods of the Willamette and the Columbia
as well as the hurricane of 1962, and so on.
Mr. PYLES. I suggest one solution is to keep the towns and in-
dustries out of the flood plains. That would be the easiest way.
350 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
Mr. SELKE. That doesn't solve the problem for the others in the
valley.
Mrs. RALPH CURTIS SMITH. We have a problem that I would ap-
preciate some information on. We have a well-established retail
coal company in the city, right in the center of the city. We have a
great deal of coal-dust that emanates from this coal plant. What
kind of wetting compound is there that is practical?
Mr. COLLINS. I can say that the wetting of coal dust is a very
difficult problem. Chemical wetting agents are available but ex-
pensive and not very efficient. Probably the best way of dealing
with the dust nuisance is to have adequate water sprays as near to
the source of the dust as possible.
DAVTD BROWER. I think we are concerned quite a bit about the
efficiency of coal mining, because we would rather see, for example,
coal used for power than dams in Grand Canyon. But we are also
mindful of the kind of reclamation that took place in some of our
own California land, where a century ago, we took the gold out.
The only way we reclaimed the spoil piles was to expand suburbia
over them, beyond Sacramento, toward the Sierra Nevada.
In this kind of struggle, there is a mining operation that goes on in
our redwood country. The soil slips down in the canyons. There is
no reclamation yet attempted there.
We wonder sometimes what chance there is to tell the public
what its choice is before the step is made. Before we take red-
woods off the slope and let the slope deteriorate, how much more
would we have to pay for the redwood in order to have a good slope
left? Before we go ahead and disrupt a piece of land with strip
mining for coal, how much more would we have to pay per kilowatt-
hour of energy, if it is going into power? How much would we have
to pay for a pound of steel going into the heavy machinery needed
to put the soil back where we can and replant on it according to the
best instructions of Mr. Netting?
The public often doesn't get the choice to leave the land unspoiled
and pay the extra cost for mining. Where we do mine, should we
restore and put that in the price, or should we just let it lie and have
it as a perpetual and long-lasting eyesore? I think this panel should
recommend something about this, to make sure the public sees what
the choices are.
RECLAMATION OF THE LANDSCAPE 351
L. E. SAWYER. My work for the past 21 years has been almost
exclusively confined to reclamation, principally in the State of
Indiana.
I think the members of the panel have brought out very graph-
ically the extreme variation in the different parts of the country
in mining and in the reclamation problem. We have had a definite
program of reclamation in Indiana since 1926. As a result of that
program, less than 5 percent of the land that has been disturbed by
mining has not been reclaimed. That is a natural lag. We have
to let the ground settle. Nature requires time to break down the rock
and shale before we have a planting site. We know what to plant.
We are not planting spruce, as the man said. We have adapted our
species to the different sites that we are dealing with. We can't
apply the same practice throughout the State. We are confined
only to the southwestern corner of the State. We have to use dif-
ferent mixtures on different sites.
The same thing applies in many parts of west Kentucky, with
which I am familiar, and in Illinois. It is impossible to apply the
same law and same practices uniformly over the entire State. They
need to be tailored to fit the type of material you are dealing with,
whether it be material that can be restored to agricultural use or
whether it is land that should be reforested or land that should be
developed for homesites.
I would like to assure you homesites in Indiana are selling today
for more than the companies paid for the land when it had the coal
underneath. It is simply because we have nice bodies of water.
People are crazy for water and they are paying fantastic prices for
that land.
Dr. STEPHEN SPURR. I think it is obvious to all of us, but the
record should show, I think, that the elements of the landscape should
include more than the topography and the soil : They should include
the vegetation, the forests, the water, and the structures raised by
man. Although this panel has concentrated upon the very impor-
tant part of the reclamation of disturbed land, I think that the topic
is sufficiently broad that we should recognize that there are equally
serious and in many cases much larger areas which call for the
restoration of vegetation that has been destroyed by fire, by over-
grazing, or by overcutting; which call for the restoration of water
bodies, whether rivers, ponds, or lakes, that have been destroyed
by mismanagement; and the restoration of the ravages of human
352 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
structures that are no longer needed, that are antiquated and that
can be removed. These are also part of the elements of the coun-
tryside, and they should, sooner or later, deserve attention equal
to that given the important topic of this panel.
IRVING LIKE. I have a question for those members of the panel
that represent industry.
Where you have a reclamation problem of the first magnitude and
where private industry, local initiative, or State government is un-
able or unwilling to act within a reasonable period of time, are you
willing to accept the proposition that there be legislation enabling
the Federal Government to act as a guarantor of performance?
Mr. DAVIS ON. I am not sure I understand what you propose.
Mr. MOTT. I believe he is saying that if private industry doesn't
carry out this major reclamation program, the Federal Government
should do so. Is this what you said?
Mr. LIKE. The point is that Federal power will be available
and provided for in the legislation to be exercised within a reason-
able period of time in local situations where local initiative does
not carry out the same objective.
Mr. PYLES. Under effective State laws, the State has police power.
It can require bonds, which amount to sometimes $1,000 an acre
or more. The States also have other police power. Every strip min-
ing operation in the five leading States must be licensed, and these
licenses must be renewed each year. I don't know about New York
State, whether this is the operation you have in mind. But the
States have the power; the Federal Government doesn't exercise it.
Representative OTTINGER. I think we were agreed, though, there
have been some cases where interests were involved that were so
great that the State couldn't adequately cope with them. There are
situations in which Federal standards should be established.
I certainly very strongly subscribe to that view. I think you have
to have some mechanism sufficiently flexible to meet different situa-
tions in different States; that we have a vehicle available along the
lines of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, where the Federal
Government would lay down certain basic standards and the States
would come in with specific programs to meet those standards.
RECLAMATION OF THE LANDSCAPE 353
BENJAMIN LINSKY. Two points: One, a comment, emphasizing
the point that was brought up before by one of the members of the
audience. In flatland areas such as Detroit where I grew up, it
may be of value to develop and reclaim quarries and instead of
stopping at grade, going up and developing some hills which would
have scenic value as picnic areas.
Something comparable has already been done, at Rouge Park,
where a solid toboggan slide is built of rubbish and makes a nice
picnic hill in the summer.
The second point, I think, came out of the audience response to
your panel. The economic choices, as to the costs, ought to be
presented much more often in terms that are realistic to the con-
sumer, such as the added amount on your electricity bill, for the
average family per month. Added cost-per-ton of coal for cleaner
air or restored mining surface means nothing to him; he cannot trans-
late it without a good deal of instruction or research.
Statements Submitted for the Record
SAUL B. COHEN. I suggest that the panel consider recommending
the establishment of a National Spoil Reclamation Bank, to grapple
in a bold and imaginative way with the major problem of coal spoils
and other mine tailings. Punitive measures in State codes that levy
fines are inadequate to the task. In West Virginia, fines of $25 per
acre are hardly a deterrent to the owner, when spoil reclamation may
cost $250 per acre. A Federally sponsored and funded Spoil Bank,
organized to match owners' reclamation investments (which, in turn,
can be provided with tax benefits), seems to offer the strongest and
perhaps the only assurance of solving this aspect of the rural land-
scape reclamation problem.
MILO W. HOISVEEN. Criteria regarding the leveling of spoil banks
and abandoned channels created through the construction of drain-
age canals and river channel changes have improved greatly in recent
years.
It can be further improved to remove ugliness. Areas where spoil
piles exist should be leveled to blend in with the topography of the
existing land which will permit seeding to useful purposes and thereby
eliminate a noxious weed problem area. Channel straightening has
in many instances been a necessary adjunct to eliminate floods ; how-
ever, in many instances the abandoned segments of the channels have
354 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
not been leveled which generally leaves a mosquito-infested bog
which is usually most unsightly.
Agencies affiliated with the State and Federal governments respon-
sible for such construction should be urged to take immediate steps to
establish criteria to improve construction in this regard. They
should also care for such past performances on a retroactive basis
where such work has been performed as a part of their responsibility.
ARNOLD E. LAMM.* Adequate provision was not made for repre-
sentation by the surface coal mining industry at the panel discus-
sions during the White House Conference on Natural Beauty, par-
ticularly since most of the emphasis in the discussions on land rec-
lamation was directed toward reclamation of the strip mine areas.
In the hope that we may be able to have our side of the story
heard and included in the conference report to the President, we
submit the following statement:
All parties must recognize that the coal mining industry, including
the surface mines, is an essential contributor to our economy. Low-
cost surface mined coal in most cases fuels the electric generation
which has provided this country with its greatest competitive advan-
tage over the low labor cost competitors from other areas.
Dr. Julian W. Feiss of the Department of the Interior, in a paper
before the Council of State Governments on April 13, 1964, said
"Mining in one form or another has existed for many thousands
of years and will continue to exist as long as man occupies this
planet." At another point in this same address, Dr. Feiss said with
respect to coal mining, "If it is necessary to strip off 60 feet of rock
or overburden to reach a 5 -foot seam of coal, this overburden is
waste. There are times when it is advisable to return the waste to
the excavation; there are other times when this is difficult."
The surface coal mining industry has long recognized the need
for reclamation of mined land. In fact, the first reclamation projects
were inaugurated more than 40 years ago. Since that time thou-
sands and thousands of acres of marginal land have been mined and
then converted into multiple-use land, the value of which is many
dollars greater than the original land.
The problem of land reclamation in the coal industry is magnified
out of all proportion to its true relation in the natural resource picture.
The Tennessee Valley Authority, in a publication issued in 1963,
*This is an extension of the remarks made by Mr. Lamm during the panel
discussion.
RECLAMATION OF THE LANDSCAPE 355
pointed out that the total land area of the 22 States in which surface
mining is carried on is 770,747,000 acres. Of this total, according
to TV A, only slightly more than 500,000 acres have been disturbed
by surface mining operations. This represents only 65/100 of 1 per-
cent of the total land area of these States. By comparison, in these
same 22 States, the total acreage affected by highway construction
was 25,976,000 acres or more than 50 times the surface area disturbed
by mining. Whereas little of the land disturbed by mining was pro-
ductive agricultural land, a great share of the land converted to
highway construction had previously been agricultural land.
In the same vein, the Department of Agriculture has estimated
that of all the area devoted to crop production, 1,382,000,000
acres are in need of immediate conservation treatment. This is
almost twice the total land area of the 22 States in which surface
mining is practiced. Yet a great percentage of the publicity and
criticism is directed to the surface mining industry and little or
nothing is said about the highway areas or the farming areas that
are in greater need of reclamation attention.
Despite the insignificant effect on total land area, the surface min-
ing industry has not minimized its efforts to develop effective and
efficient programs of land reclamation in the mining areas. A great
deal of time and money has been expended by the industry in develop-
ing and expanding its reclamation programs on a voluntary basis.
Studies and research by the industry and by cooperating Federal
and State agencies have continued to improve the types of reclama-
tion practices employed.
Through the Mined-Land Conservation Conference, a voluntary
organization of the responsible surface mining companies in the
United States, a code of practices has been subscribed to by the
members of the MLCC, which among other things provides for
the following:
The reclamation of all land affected by the mining operation is
the responsibility of each operator.
Restoration of mined land to its most practical and productive
use within the shortest possible time is basic to a sound conserva-
tion program.
All mined land should be seeded or planted to produce vegetative
cover as soon after mining as practical.
Mined land should be devoted to the highest and best possible
uses compatible with the uses of adjoining land.
356 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
Reclamation of mined land, including planting to grass or trees
should be done on a planned basis under technical guidance of
personnel trained in this field.
Reclamation programs should be carried out so that the final use
of the land will not appreciably reduce the taxable value of the land
below the valuation which the land carried before mining opera-
tions commenced.
Mine owners should not be content with a minimum of reclama-
tion. They should encourage voluntary participation in sound
reclamation practices by all operators in their areas.
The surface mine industry believes that where regulation is de-
sirable, it should be the responsibility of the State or local agencies.
This thinking results from the practicable knowledge that conditions
of the land subject to reclamation are so varied that no single formula
can be established. Endorsing this contention, the Tennessee Valley
Authority said :
No two strip mines are the same and rarely are two parts of the
same mine identical. The proportions of stone and soil vary greatly,
and for any particular spot, the proportions change with weathering
and erosion. Acidity varies sharply within short distances.
We feel that conscientious effort is being made by the industry to
prosecute a progressive and productive program of land reclamation.
Great forward steps have been taken; however, much more is in the
future. It should be realized that in many cases of complaint of
denuded soils hi surface mining operations, the time element required
for the weathering process to make land suitable for vegetation
causes the barren appearance. However, this will be rectified within
a short time to produce verdant growth in most cases.
On the subject of reclamation of strip mine banks, the Department
of Agriculture, in one of its recent reports, states :
Most authorities advise delay of planting until the banks have
settled and severe erosion has had a chance to run its course.
The surface coal mining industry accepts and honors its responsi-
bility for the reclamation of the lands mined. The industry has
proven by past accomplishments that it is capable of solving this prob-
lem and affecting a result that will be a credit to the industry, to the
communities and in consonance with the aims and purposes of the
White House Conference on Natural Beauty. We only ask that in
carrying forward this program our work be appraised and judged
RECLAMATION OF THE LANDSCAPE 357
fairly and accurately by all segments of the population government
agencies, the press, and the general public.
ELDRIDGE LOVELACE. Preservation of natural beauty must start
with a reverence for land. When mistreated, the land fights back
with results that are more than ugliness. Mud in the canyons of
Los Angeles is one example. Rampant erosion that occurs in the
Peoria area whenever the vegetative cover is removed from steep
slopes of sandy, gravelly soil is another. There are hundreds of
examples around every growing city.
By zoning we regulate what goes on the land. Why could we not
regulate what is done with the land and require that land be treated
reverently, carefully and judiciously? While they would vary from
community to community, it is possible to set forth standards for the
preservation of native plant material, for the intensity and character
of urban use in relation to land slopes and to the character of existing
tree growth. The bulldozer approach to urban expansion could be
straightforwardly prohibited by local law. There is no reason why
an individual should be allowed to destroy ground forms, plant
growth, or wildlife on his property whether he builds anything on it
or not. Some areas such as very steep slopes, drainage courses, and
flood plains should not be built upon at all. Where an absolutely
essential project has to disturb the landscape the regulations could
specify the restorative measures to be put into effect.
Model ordinances to accomplish these purposes should be pre-
pared under the sponsorship of the HHFA with assistance of com-
mittees formed for this purpose from the American Society of Civil
Engineers, the American Society of Landscape Architects, and the
American Bar Association. Successful enactment and enforcement
of such legislation in a few communities on an experimental basis
could then be followed by requiring it as part of a workable pro-
gram that should be the prerequisite for Federal grants.
A few decades ago minimum standard housing regulations were
almost unknown. Now they are commonplace. "Reverence for
Land" regulations could have a similar history and bring an even
greater benefit. Prevention of misuse of land would be preferable to
the expensive and frustrating experience of trying to correct the mis-
takes later on. Surely there is more than enough public interest
involved and a significantly great effect on the public welfare to
warrant the extension of the police power into this field.
CHAPTER 13
THE UNDERGROUND
INSTALLATION OF UTILITIES
3:30 p.m., Monday, May 24
The Chairman Mr. CISLER. In our deliberations prior to our
meeting this afternoon, we decided to divide our panel presentations
in order to recognize the marked distinction between overhead and
underground installations in relation to low voltage and high voltage;
the responsibilities of various regulatory bodies ; the participation of
the equipment manufacturers in the subject; the matter of high-
voltage transmission, which is quite a different matter than that for
low-voltage distributions and service installations; and finally, the
need for long-range planning, which to me is very important, indeed.
We must make the distinction between overhead installations of
the low-voltage distribution circuits and the underground circuits
specifically serving the same purpose. There is a great distinction
between these and circuits which are for high-voltage transmission,
both overhead and underground, which have an entirely different
purpose, and which are governed by entirely different techniques and
technology, economics, and other matters.
Mr. NELSON. A revolutionary change has taken place in the pat-
tern of installation of low-voltage electric distribution lines during
the last few years. Not all of us in the industry, and certainly few
people outside it, are aware of the extent of this change or its sig-
nificance. I think I can best illustrate what is happening by using
as an example my own city of Los Angeles.
Members of the Panel on The Underground Installation of Util-
ities were William M. Bennett, Walker L. Cisler (Chairman), John
Dyckman, Ludwig F. Lischer, Rod J. McMullin, Samuel B. Nelson,
Joseph C. Swidler, and George L. Wilcox. Staff Associate was Ted
Mermel.
359
360 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
In 1962 only about 20 percent of new residences were served from
underground facilities. By 1964 this had increased to almost 50
percent and by the end of this year it will undoubtedly exceed 60
percent. The change in the pattern of service to new residential
subdivisions has been even more spectacular. In 1962 less than 10
percent of all new subdivisions were served underground. Right
now 60 percent are going in underground, and by the early 1970's,
this should approach 1 00 percent.
A similar trend, although not so radical, has been experienced in
other phases of our distribution system.
The reduction in cost of underground as much as 60 percent
in some areas has been a great factor in making this change pos-
sible. The primary motivation, however, which started this revolu-
tion and has maintained its momentum, is the increasing desire of
people to raise the standard of beauty of their own environment.
I have painted a very rosy picture and one that is surely consistent
with the purpose of this meeting in Washington. This raises in
your mind, as it has in mine, a very logical question and that is:
if all of this underground is going in, how does it happen that we still
see on the face of America so many poles and wires?
In the answer to this question lies the two major problems, which
we are faced with.
1. The improvement of the appearance of overhead lines where
underground can't do the job, because of load density, topography,
soil condition, or other factors. In other words, improving the
appearance of those facilities that must go overhead now in this in-
terim period.
2. The conversion of existing overhead systems to underground.
Much progress has been made on the first of these problems, as
a result of a comprehensive program of research and development
involving the manufacturing as well as the utility segment of our
industry. New materials and methods have made outstanding con-
tributions to the aesthetic impact of these essential overhead facilities.
Examples of these are metal poles of graceful design, without cross-
arms, serving the dual function of street lighting and distribution
with service wires underground; light-colored poles without cross-
arms and with bare wires on side-mounted insulators; low silhouette
designs deliberately planned to blend with the background of trees
and buildings.
In the west we are acutely aware of this problem and are actively
working on methods of solving it.
THE UNDERGROUND INSTALLATION OF UTILITIES 361
Late last year a Utilities Appearance Committee was organized
by 24 utilities in five western States. This committee is coordinat-
ing the approaches and proposed solutions of all participating utili-
ties in an effort to arrive at standardization of designs which are
both aesthetically and economically sound.
The problem of converting existing overhead districts to under-
ground is a more difficult one to solve. Circumstances vary widely.
In the older areas, absentee ownership and low income result in a
general lack of interest in the aesthetic aspect. Left alone, the con-
version would probably come about automatically due to change in
land use. This could take many years, and I'm not sure it's the best
answer. It seems to me the solution in these areas requires the co-
operative effort of the property owners, the community, and the
utility. It may well be that more flexible improvement district regu-
lations are also indicated.
In other less depressed areas, the solution should be easier, but
even here, despite an active program on the part of the utility, very
little conversion has been made. Perhaps here, too, more flexibility
in the formation of improvement districts would help.
I might make a comment on an article which appeared in the
May issue of Public Power, which told about an experience that
the Sacramento Municipal Utility has had on new subdivisions.
They offered the underground facilities, over an 18-month period,
at no extra cost to subdividers and their experience was so good that
they have extended this for another 1 2 months.
The situation is different in different parts of the country, and this
is only one utility which has stepped forward and actually provided
the underground installations at no extra cost. The general prac-
tice is to have the subdivider pay for the difference in the cost of over-
head over the cost of underground, and this cost varies as to topogra-
phy and location of facilities.
Mr. LISGHER. I think most electric utilities are becoming increas-
ingly aware of the need to have their facilities attractive as well as
low in cost. While considerable progress has been made in certain
areas, much remains to be done. The single, biggest problem is how
to do it economically so that it will not be an impediment for further
rate reductions for our customers.
In the distribution systems to our homes, ten years ago the cost
ratio of going underground compared to overhead lines was 10 to 1 ;
today in some instances, it is 1 J/2 to 1 . Much has been accomplished
362 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
by equipment suppliers, by the utility engineers who are looking
for new methods, by work with the land developers, with contractors
and, in our own case, with telephone companies for sharing of costs.
We have been able to achieve this reduction in cost and I am sure
that we can make further improvement, so that in the very near
future we can have underground service to new residential develop-
ments competitive in cost with overhead service because of the
progress that has been made in driving down costs. Last year in
our own Chicago area, a little better than 50 percent of all the new
residential subdivisions went in with underground service.
If you are talking about conversion of an existing area in a city,
this becomes an entirely different problem. There the disruption
that would take place, the cutting of trenches on lawns, the tearing
up of streets and the existence of gaslines, sewerlines, waterlines,
and so on, raise the cost. You don't have a 1 or 1% to 1 ratio,
you can have a 5 to 1 or 1 to 1 ratio, and the home owner himself
would have to change the facilities at his house to accept a wire
coming in underground. We have estimated that service entrance
facilities thus located as compared to coming in overhead, might run
about $300 for the individual home owner.
That part of the problem is much, much tougher than the other,
and much work needs to be done.
In downtown areas, in most cities of any size, you do have under-
ground and, in most instances, this is the only acceptable way.
Now, when we talk about overhead transmission, about high-
voltage lines that have to be suspended by long strings of insulators
from large poles or towers, we are talking about an entirely different
problem. Here we are playing in a different size ball park. We are
not talking in terms of thousands of dollars or millions of dollars,
we are talking billions of dollars in differences in construction ratios
of underground cost to overhead. Those are in the order of 20 to 1
or even higher than 20 to 1 .*
Mr. BENNETT. I am a State regulator and I am exposed to the
public. Generally speaking, the public in my State wants under-
grounding. This will be accomplished by the action of the States
and localities. It is basically not a Federal program, because of the
nature of our Constitution.
*Mr. Lischer has submitted a statement on electric transmission lines which
appears later in this chapter.
THE UNDERGROUND INSTALLATION OF UTILITIES 363
We have witnessed the Woodside controversy in California and
the Bodega Bay controversy. The question is how do we solve this.
The great role that regulation can play is in acceleration. We un-
derstand that utilities must make a fair return, no question about that.
But my view on rate reduction is that while it is not the function
of the ratepayer to supply capital to the utility, study should be
made of the most beneficial manner in which cost savings may be
translated into permanent benefits for consumers. This may require
an examination of the traditional manner in which rate reductions
have been treated. Is it better to translate the rate reductions into
something of permanence such as an aesthetically pleasing under-
ground line? I will make the decision as a regulator that the pub-
lic in my State is ready for the exploration of such notions as to rate
reductions.
We had some recent substantial reductions of $24 million in our
electric utilities, and these went to rate reduction. It would have
been better if they had gone by way of beauty or permanent assets.
It enhances the neighborhood and improves it, and tax assessors take
recognition of the fact that undergrounding is aesthetic, beautiful, and
gives value to property.
In California, because of the great growth of our State, we are
able to have rate reductions, and we hope that this shall continue.
For those areas which do not have that spectacular growth, where
the utilities are perhaps locked in, I have proposed in the formal
paper I have delivered here,* but which I am not reciting now,
that possibly the Federal Government, through some tax subsidy or
benefit or program, could supply the necessary capital to do this.
We have to measure our values in our society. We puncture the
earth to bring out oil and gas, and we have a depletion allowance
which furnishes incentive. I don't think there is a great deal of
difference in terms of social values, if we gave some kind of a subsidy
for puncturing the earth to put a utility facility underground. We
have an overabundance of oil in this country. If we mean what
we say in this conference and are determined to meet the problem
of costs, this would be a way of doing it. You should bear in mind
in California a jury recently awarded severance damages by virtue
of the placing of an overhead line and the severance damages were
awarded in a substantial sum and made the construction of under-
ground just about as cheap, so to speak, as overhead.
*Mr. Bennett's formal statement is printed later in this chapter.
779-59565 24
364 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
One last thought in the brief time I have. There must be public
controls of routes which utilities select for powerlines. There is just
as much aesthetic ability in public officials as there is in management.
We are proposing in California to do this with freeways and I say
the time has come when we must do it with the long lines of public
utilities.
I happen to think we already have the power and most State
commissions have the power, which is found within the phrase "pub-
lic convenience and necessity." This conference is an eloquent testi-
mony to the fact that the rate-paying public and the public generally
are willing to pay a little bit more and that they want these controls.
I am certain of this, so the ideal may be realized.
Mr. WILCOX. Both the electric utility and the electrical manufac-
turing industries for many years have been exceedingly conscious
of the need and the desirability of contributing to the attractiveness
of residential communities and urban areas by improving the design
of utility facilities or making them invisible to the greatest practical
extent.
The problem is not always susceptible to easy solution, either by
reason of substantial cost factors involved or by the increasing com-
plexities of transmitting large blocks of power to satisfy the load
densities of rapidly expanding urban developments.
The most significant contribution to the enhancement of the ap-
pearance of our neighborhood has been underground distribution
of residential power, and it provides the most potential for early
exploitation.
A substantial advance has been made in the growth of homes
served by underground residential distribution. In the past three
years, the number of new underground residential connections
increased from 20,000 to 68,000 in 1964. Our forecast for 1965
is 96,000 new installations.
These gains are being achieved as a result of the pioneering efforts
of a number of electric utilities and manufacturers through innova-
tion, ingenious use of new materials and new methods, and a deter-
mined attack on cost differential between underground and overhead
distribution of electricity.
THE UNDERGROUND INSTALLATION OF UTILITIES
365
The progress in reducing the differential in cost has been from
$450 per lot in 1950, to $280 in 1955, to $175 in 1960, and in 1965,
to $120. We see a further reduction to a $75-per-lot differential
through the adoption of other opportunities for savings which are
generally available to us now. I don't want to burden you with
technical details, but I am suggesting such possibilities as the use of
aluminum low-voltage conductors rather than copper, radial laterals
instead of loops, elimination of high-voltage switching at each trans-
former, more compact and lower-cost transformers, and use of ran-
dom lay cables in the same trench.
TABLE 1
Typical URD costs
URD component
Construction
costs, dollars
per lot
Percent of
total
Trench and backfill
$20
7.4
Primary cables and terminal connection
45
16.7
Secondary cables and service pedestals
50
18.5
Transformers
75
27.7
Transformer pad
35
13.0
Services
45
16.7
Total . .
270
100.0
Variables
Rocky soil +.$25. 00
Primary in coilable duct +35. 00
Secondary in coilable duct +15. 00
Services in coilable duct +35. 00
Perimeter instead of back to back layout +75. 00
Vault mounted system instead of pad-mount +16. 00
Radial laterals 1 2. 00
Aluminum low-voltage conductors 11. 00
Eliminating high-voltage switch 8. 00
Random lay cables 6. 00
Low cost transformer 6. 00
URD evaluation:
Reliability and tree trimming 22. 50
Eliminating joint pole use 12. 50
Furthermore, the difference in cost can be reduced again to $40
per lot if the utility evaluates less tangible features, such as in-
creased reliability, elimination of tree-trimming costs which is a
366 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
factor in overhead lines, and the additional costs to the utility if
telephone lines go undeground while power lines stay overhead.
Another pertinent factor to be taken into account is the added
value of property with underground installations. Mortgagors,
realtors, and builders evaluated the worth of underground construc-
tion in a recent survey on the West Coast as follows : The value added
by mortgagors was $150 per lot, $100 per lot by realtors, and $80 by
builders. Thus, it would seem that, in addition to aesthetic values
involved, real estate with underground distribution lines is a good
buy for the builder-developer of a new subdivision.
However, it must be kept in mind that the economics of under-
ground residential distribution is subject to many variables many
more than might appear on superficial analysis. Table 1 is a cost
analysis for a typical new subdivision. As you can see, the costs of
an installation are based on such items as trench construction, types
of primary and secondary cables and their connections and service
pedestals, the transformers and the number of customers per trans-
former. The total cost in this example adds up to $270, which is
about $120 more per lot than the present average of overhead costs.
But, in the underground construction, other variables are en-
countered. The soil itself can make a difference, particularly if it
is rocky. So can the subdivision layout. The other variables come
within the realm of judgment. Each utility will make what it be-
lieves to be the best compromise between the economics of the instal-
lation and such factors as reliability, safety, its own operating
practices, and of course the appearance, or aesthetics, of the
installation. One factor in appearance is the necessary transformer.
[Mr. Wilcox's statement was accompanied by a series of photo-
graphs of the devices and installations which he here describes.]
The most common system employed today is the pad-mounted
transformer. Westinghouse has given a lot of attention to the design
of its pad-mounted transformers to make them clean and unob-
trusive in appearance. But they must still be stationed above ground
somewhere in the neighborhood.
An alternative is a compact pad-mount, much smaller and much
less obtrusive and easily concealed with shrubbery. But it does
sacrifice some of the operating flexibility provided by the larger
transformer.
A design which we think contributes most to the clean, attractive
appearance of a residential street we call the Somerset Design, and
THE UNDERGROUND INSTALLATION OF UTILITIES 367
it houses a fairly standard transformer in a below-surface vault, con-
cealed by the base of a street light.
If street lighting is not used, the vault can be covered at ground
level by an almost invisible street grating.
Looking further into the future, we see the possibility of a direct-
buried transformer, with which several utilities and manufacturers
are experimenting at the present time.
Let me emphasize that I have been talking about underground
distribution for new residential subdivisions, in which the use of
underground construction is economically feasible. Replacement
of existing overhead powerlines with an underground system is still
too expensive to receive anything but token consideration, simply
because of the tremendous costs involved in taking down existing
lines and attempting to install underground lines in built-up areas
with paved streets, concrete sidewalks and a tangle of existing water-
lines, sewers and buried construction of various sorts.
Also, while the cost-gap between underground and overhead
residential power distribution has narrowed to a point of practicality,
the cost of underground transmission is prohibitively expensive for
the vast majority of high-voltage, high-capacity transmission line
application. Present 220 and 345-kv. underground cable trans-
mission is many times the cost of overhead transmission, even though
in many situations it must be used because of prohibitions against
going overhead through congested metropolitan centers.
Cable circuits have much lower limits of power-carrying capability
than overhead circuits. For example, a 345-kv. cable can carry up
to 500,000 kv.-a. effectively for distances of up to 15 miles. For
greater distances, additional equipment is required. Underground
systems of the future may require transmission capabilities in excess
of 2 million kv.-a. for 25 or more miles.
One solution is to improve the power-carrying capacity of the
cable. Another possible solution, looking to the future, is suggested
by our engineers who are exploring the use of pressurized gas as the
insulating medium with the conductor being supported inside a pipe
by appropriate cylindrical insulators.
Three 12- to 14-inch pipes could operate at 345,000 volts and
carry up to 1,500,000 kv.-a. for distances up to 300 miles. This
would provide three times the carrying capacity now possible with
conventional cable systems, for 20 times the distance. We have
labeled this the Pressure Insulated Piped Electrical System, and we
have already made an urban substation layout utilizing this system
368 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
which would be a significant innovation and a most worthwhile
contribution to landscape attractiveness. This design would take
up only one-twentieth of the real estate space required by existing
substations. This small, compact substation would be completely
enclosed, and all of the live parts of the substation would be insulated
with pressurized gas.
This design eliminates contamination, radio influence and light-
ning problems. As in the case of point-to-point transmission appli-
cation, this substation would be considerably more expensive in first-
cost than a conventional open-bus substation. But where space and
land values are important considerations, the added cost would be
offset by the inherent advantages, both practical and aesthetic, of this
design.
Again attacking the problem of increasing underground power-
carrying capacities, Westinghouse engineers are also looking to circuit
transmission utilizing conducting material which is refrigerated to
a cryogenic temperature of 450 F. Such a superconducting trans-
mission line might be constructed with a center region containing
two superconductors and liquid helium flowing from a refrigerator.
Surrounding the center region would be multiple radiation shield
thermal insulation. The very high current which can be achieved
with this system would permit the use of low voltages of 13,000 to
25,000 volts, such as those employed in large generators and dis-
tribution systems.
These are but a few of the advanced concepts which can contrib-
ute to the objectives under discussion here today. They are evidence
of the possibilities ahead of us and also are evidence of the keen inter-
est which the electric utilities and the electrical manufacturers have
in enhancing the appearance of our residential communities, of our
cities and of the Nation as a whole.
Major research and development programs will be required to im-
plement these ideas and to translate designs into working realities.
Large expenditures will be necessary to support such research and
development. I would like to suggest a thorough evaluation of the
problems and of the potentials as the basis for a possible support pro-
gram in the form of research and development funding by the electric
utility industry.
Mr. SWIDLER. Standards of beauty are not eternal; each genera-
tion develops its own. I think that public administrators and the
electric utilities industry must accept the standards of beauty which
THE UNDERGROUND INSTALLATION OF UTILITIES 369
prevail in the Nation and the various communities rather than inter-
pose their own. And if, in this country, the people in any particular
area think that overhead transmission lines are unsightly and that
we should make a strenuous effort to eliminate them from the land-
scape, I think this becomes the challenge for the industry and for the
people associated with the industry.
Nevertheless, I think we might get this problem in perspective.
For practical purposes, I think the distribution problem is well in
hand. The transfer of small amounts of energy for short distances
at low voltages presents no great technological or economic problem
at the present time. The problem of heavy transmission lines is dif-
ferent. I am talking about transferring large amounts of power long
distances at high voltage. And this presents very serious problems.
Electric transmission towers are neutral in their effect on the
environment. They produce no contamination and they have no
cumulative byproducts. Sitting here and listening to the previous
panelists discussing the results of surface coal mining and the prob-
lems of contamination which result, I realize that this is a high
priority problem which, in comparison with the transmission line
problem, will be a low-cost problem to resolve. The problem of
electric transmission is the other way around. The towers ultimately
could be removed. They do not harm the landscape. They hurt no
one while they are erected and in operation. I think they present
a relatively low priority problem and yet one that requires truly
enormous amounts of money to solve. You could solve almost all of
the problems, all the other problems of natural beauty which have
been discussed in this whole conference for only probably a part of
the money that is involved in undergrounding the electric transmis-
sion systems in this country.
The problem arises, if I may speak about the technology (I am a
lawyer and I say this on what we call information and belief), that
when you transfer power on a metallic conductor, you generate heat.
In the outside atmosphere, this is no problem, and at low voltage for
short distances, this is not much of a problem. But when you take
that line and try to put it underground and bury it which is the
ordinary desire of people who don't like to look at the transmission
towers then you have a problem of dissipating your heat under-
ground. This problem is aggravated by the fact that you are deal-
ing with a very dangerous voltage so that you have to insulate your
conductor.
370 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
Since you cannot readily dissipate the heat, the heat tends to
build up to a point of destroying the electrical insulation. I am
talking now about present technology, and not about the advanced
systems that Mr. Wilcox described here. The ordinary insulation
presently used is simply oil-impregnated paper and the cable is im-
mersed in an oil bath held in a conduit.
Now, in order to move the current along, so much heat is gener-
ated, and the heat increases on a geometric basis with distance and
volume of current, so that for a 25- or 30-mile stretch, you would get
so much heat built up for nonuseful purposes that no useful power
could be transferred.
This means that, as a practical matter, in present technology a
long underground line is just not a very useful line to take care of the
great responsibility of the industry to move large blocks of power for
long distances.
There is no fixed ratio of costs underground as compared with
overhead construction. In the present technology, the ratio would
vary from a minimum of several to 1 to 20 or even 50 to 1, depending
on the length of the line, its capacity, and other factors. A broad
program of substitution would require drastic upward revision in
power costs, on a major scale, perhaps on the order of half as much
again as we are paying. And I think we are presented with the
question, is it worth it on any broad scale?
In practice, if undergrounding were required for all new high-
voltage construction, the Nation would be compelled to revert to
isolated generating plants within or close to metropolitan areas, in
order to minimize the transmission investment. This would entail
great sacrifices of economy in power transmission operation as well
as accentuate the air pollution problems that confront our metro-
politan areas today. In my judgment, this would not be progress,
but retrogression.
Now, Mr. Wilcox has described to you many promising possibili-
ties through radical improvements in technology. There is much
the industry could do, both to improve the existing technology and
to develop these breakthroughs, and I think they will come. I think
undoubtedly in another generation, perhaps much less, we will get
the kind of ratio of costs in transmitting large blocks of power for
long distances that has now been achieved by the industry in dis-
tribution. This is what we should press for, to advance the tech-
nology as fast as it can possibly be done, so that we can bring closer
THE UNDERGROUND INSTALLATION OF UTILITIES 371
the day when people can look upon a landscape free from trans-
mission towers, but without paying an exhorbitant cost for that
freedom of view.
One thing you must keep in mind is that, unlike the problem of
distribution where you can ask the home owner to share in the cost of
improving his home by putting the distribution lines underground,
it is very difficult to make a fair allocation of the costs and burdens
of undergrounding transmission lines, because a relatively few land-
owners may benefit, but hundreds of thousands or millions of power
consumers may be picking up the tab. I think not only the land-
owners, but the power consumers should be consulted.
I have heard landowners say, "It is worth it. I am willing to pay
a few cents more for electricity to get rid of the towers." They
say this even though the company involved is not the company that
serves them with electricity. They say this even though not only
they, but millions of other power consumers, would have to make
a contribution a large contribution, not a few pennies to spare
them the necessity of looking upon transmission towers.
I think we can all work toward a solution to this problem. In
the meantime the industry should do everything possible to minimize
adverse scenic effects of overhead transmission.
The Federal Power Commission recently created an advisory
committee on underground transmission for the purpose of survey-
ing all the possibilities of the present technology, and of suggesting
how we might press for improvements in the future. We expect
that report before the end of the year. I think it will make a sub-
stantial contribution to advancing the day when we will have free-
dom of choice in the kind of transmission without severe economic
penalty.
Mr. DYCKMAN. I think there has been, in all of this discussion, a
remarkable neglect of the planning perspective. I hope that I can
speak as a planner, if not as an expert on utilities.
It seems to me that with remarkably few exceptions the issues
which we have been discussing or have heard being discussed this
afternoon take as given, the entire present pattern, both of the dis-
tribution of customers and the distribution of services. It seems
to me, this is not at all a necessary state of affairs.
I don't want to paint a picture for you of an entirely new system
today, because I don't know now what the new system will be like.
I just want to point out that the present one is changing very much.
372 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
When I say that it is changing, I would like to suggest that even
such questions as the necessary length of line over which we must
carry the high-voltage systems, are themselves functions of this pat-
tern of distribution, and in some cases they are functions of quite
irrational and quite unplanned accidents of utility company juris-
dictions left over from the past.
Nobody in this country has as yet designed whole communities
which minimize some of the problems that we are talking about
here today, but certainly that is not outside our competence.
I don't want to put forward a special perspective the benefit-
cost issue or public choice perspective because I think that Mr.
Bennett alluded to this, and I think we are fortunate that Mr. Ben-
nett is so sensitive to this issue. But the present pattern which we
have developed in our country has often given local communities
and local citizens very little choice in the matter of land use by utili-
ties, and I think this is something which local communities are now
beginning to attack with some kind of vigor.
This point is made very clear in the Woodside issue which Mr.
Bennett spoke about, which involved some high-voltage lines. The
issue was not really: Shall there be any high- voltage lines or shall
there be any high-voltage lines above ground or underground, but
shall they be along a certain alignment which was especially damag-
ing to the view and to the scenic character of the area?
As long as it was determined by the utilities and others that it had
to be along a certain alignment, then the citizens said, let us put
this underground. They made it very clear that in this event they
would be prepared to face all the consequences of doing this.
I suggest we have hardly begun to explore the real choice situa-
tion, the real alternatives open to communities in these situations.
If a community wishes to place an especially high value on a particu-
lar site or a particular view, then it seems to me there are plenty
of mechanisms for recouping the added cost, even if they be 10 to 1.
The Highway Act principle, which we employ in this country,
demonstrates very well, for example, that we could in fact take up
to 3 5/2 percent off the capital costs of Federal projects and highways
for beautification and scenic purposes. A similar principle applied
to the utilities would in some cases have well handled the costs that
were added. Not in all, but in a number of cases, such a formula
offers quite a bit of promise. It may be a question whether we
want to invoke such a formula, but certainly the possibility exists.
THE UNDERGROUND INSTALLATION OF UTILITIES 373
Similarly, I think, when we look at the problems, we ought to
perhaps distinguish those which are technical and economic from
those which are basically, at the present stage of the game, engineer-
ing problems. In the long haul, a good deal will have to be done
in the way of State planning and Federal planning to create the
real possibilities for choice for communities operating vis-a-vis the
utility problem. As bitter as it may be, State planning in particular
is going to have to rationalize the present pattern of distribution, so
as to avoid some of the most unfavorable aspects of the present in-
fringement, on the scenic beauty.
I remember when I was a boy in the Niagara frontier, where a lot
of power was generated by Niagara Falls, that we had the most
extraordinary pattern of crisscrossing of utility lines, all through
Ontario, because the utility companies were trying to cut each other
out of specially favored territories, and engaged in an intricate game
of real estate dominoes.
In a certain respect, this is what will have to be controlled and
controllable in the future by State planners.
When I say State planning, I mean the activities of the public
utilities commissions themselves.
Very likely, too, as Mr. Bennett suggests, we will have to suggest
long-range funding. We will have to facilitate the prospect of creat-
ing public funds by a system of charges needed to build up the re-
sources for the research and development activities which will
eliminate some of the more undesirable features of the present-day
transmission pattern. It is very likely, too, that we will have to ask
for Federal cooperation at the planning level for Federal use of
some of the powers which already exist in Federal agencies to bring
about some of the more difficult changes with respect to our present
undesirable pattern.
For example, the Federal Housing Administration is in a position
to greatly facilitate the relocation of some unsightly utilities by
simply supporting the value, the increment, in its own loan policy.
If it is willing to recognize an absolute premium on properties which
are not blighted scenically, then it has the potential for creating a
very favorable loan situation. This is one of the things that you
need to get at.
The problem is that we have high costs on the capital side and
very long amortization periods. The Federal Housing Agency
could help out by its valuation policies.
374 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
I have already mentioned the Highway Act principle. I think
there are many other such powers now in the Federal community
facilities program, and others, which could be used.
To sum up, I am not convinced if we care very much about
the scenic defects of utilities, if we care very much about some of the
safety effects of utilities, if we care very much about some of the
general blighting issues that have been raised, that it is beyond our
power to change these. I feel very strongly that we are not victims
of existing technology in this regard, and we are not really at the
mercy of altogether unfavorable cost estimations. Put differently,
not all the costs we now favor are unavoidable costs.*
Mr. McMuLLiN. As a bridge for the discussion by the audience,
I would just like to firm up some of the things said here by various
members of the panel. First of all, there certainly is a growing aware-
ness on this matter of eliminating electric lines and putting them
underground. This awareness is certainly developing among the
people, and as a result of the awareness by the people, it is develop-
ing with the utilities and the utilities are responding with incentive
programs for underground installations. They provide cash allow-
ances and advertising and other incentives for the developer, and
also cash allowances and participation in financing to put the lines
underground. And there are predictions that within five or ten
years, all installations, all new installations, will go underground.
Now, as has been pointed up, the existing overhead lines present
another problem. One of the things that is being done by many
utilities is improving the overhead installations, making the poles
more graceful, less obvious, doing many things to at least please the
eye. Although I am associated with a utility, I have to confess that
we haven't always had aesthetics in mind in doing some of the things
we do. I think of the transformer that hangs outside the picture
window at home. But I don't dare ask to have it moved, because
I will be in trouble.
We can improve the design on the overhead installations. Some
effort is being made to give this a name called "power styling" or
"community styling" as we call it in our organization.
How can we speed up these programs? Professor Dyckman has
mentioned financing. This is certainly one of the ways, a practical
way. I think it may take some amending of title II under FHA,
*Mr. Dyckman has submitted a further statement which appears later in this
chapter.
THE UNDERGROUND INSTALLATION OF UTILITIES 375
which is the portion of FHA loans for improvements. Maybe this
can be done for putting lines underground, to join consumers to-
gether in some kind of a district to get long-term and low-cost fi-
nancing. The utility can cooperate by putting the payments on
the bill and paying the funds to the Federal Government on the
repayment program.
I am addressing myself to underground distribution lines within
the communities. Research is still needed here to bring those costs
down. We are down to l*/^ to 1, as Mr. Lischer pointed out here.
Well, the object is to get it down to even cost and then this will make
it practical to go underground with all installations.
Certainly, it behooves the utility to take an aggressive approach to
solving this problem and with this awareness comes the need to dig
into the problem and really get at it.
I think conferences such as this help make the utility conscious of
it, aware of it, and I think all of us and all the utility people who
may be present here, will take the message home that we have a job
to do and we have to translate this program into action in our
communities.
In regard to transmission, it behooves us to look at this problem, as
Mr. Bennett pointed out. We need to look at the practical side at
possibilities of rerouting lines, bringing power into our cities on
power avenues or energy rights-of-way which will conflict less with
the scenic values of the community or the area.
Here again, turning to Professor Dyckman, this is an area per-
haps for tax incentives like the present construction tax credit. This
is applied to utilities and I believe is some 3 percent. This may be
an incentive for rerouting or for going underground in critical areas,
recognizing as brought out here, that undergrounding has a prohibi-
tive cost.
Again, there is a lot to be done in improving the appearance of the
towers, making them more attractive and making them fit into the
landscape more. We can do a lot on this.
In some areas committees have been organized to take care of this.
We have a 24-utility committee out in the West covering five States
Arizona, California, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico called the
Utility Appearance Committee, and we are working aggressively to
resolve some of these problems.
Research is an answer. I think maybe it calls for some Federal
grants joined by the utilities, the manufacturers, and the Federal
376 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
Government. We need to speed up this research and solve this
problem of how to put these extra high-voltage lines underground.*
Questions and Discussion
Mr. CISLER. I have been in energy and the power industry for
nearly 43 years, and I have seen great changes occurring during that
time, not only in research, but in design and operations. There are
under way in this country tremendous developments in the field of
energy and power. I wonder if we realize that we have in the
United States as much electric power as the next five nations in the
world, including the Soviet Union. And more and more of our total
energy requirements will be in the form of electric energy.
Therefore, we must move tremendous amounts of energy from
one area, from the source of generation, to the many, many points
of utilization. This can only be done by the use of high-voltage
transmission lines from the generating stations to the substations and
from there to the low-voltage service connections. There is a very
close relationship between private industry and the public operating
organizations in connection with research and development. The
Edison Electric Institute is concerned, it has been for many years,
with the improvement of overhead and underground installations.
There is a handbook which has been in existence since 1957 in con-
nection with underground transmission work.
There has been formed recently an advisory group between the
public and the private industry in connection with research and
development, and I believe that there is much that can be done in
improving the appearance of both overhead and underground
installations.
Mr. BENNETT. Public utilities have the power of eminent domain.
If this weren't Federal property, they could walk through it and
condemn it as their own. That is as it should be, because the
public decided in the public interest, utilities should have the right
to extend the lines for the over-all good but that was in a society
that wasn't as complex as it is today. We see the difficulty in a
situation in California today. Utilities have the right to v/alk down
the scenic routes and over agricultural land, and there arises the
question whether there should be some limit on this.
*Mr. McMullin has contributed a further statement, which appears later in
this chapter.
THE UNDERGROUND INSTALLATION OF UTILITIES 377
When you go to a given community, small in size, you can find
a local planning commission, not skilled in the requirements of
planning and a local community intent upon tax revenue from the
utility facilities. It occurs to me that this power of eminent domain
must be modified. We must view these projects now, since we are
such a complex society, as being beyond the province of one local
planning commission.
This can be done. We have done it in other areas. It gets back
to the thought I expressed originally. There must be a public agency
which will interpose upon the community, upon the judgment of
management, the final determination whether this is aesthetically
pleasing. And I for one would support such legislation. There
is a bill in California to that end, and I plan to speak on behalf of it.
Mr. NELSON. I would like to ask Mr. Bennett a question. Did
I understand you to say that if the utility chooses a more expensive
method in extending its distribution system, that when the utility
made an application for a rate increase, you wouldn't challenge that
utility as having taken the expensive way of doing it?
Mr. BENNETT. No, I didn't say that, and I didn't mean you to
conclude that, but I will say that we will have to recognize this. If
we want to save Yosemite Park, and let's say it is private ownership,
the most direct route might be from a line A to a line B. If it is more
expensive to go some other route, to save some scenic highway or
area or national park or whatever, certainly we have to pay for
that other route, otherwise we will not get it. As a regulator, I would
recognize that as being a legitimate expense.
Mr. NELSON. Isn't the Public Utilities Commission of America
meeting in Sun Valley right today? Maybe we should get a telegram
off to them.
Gus NORWOOD. Four quick comments :
1 . Mr. Dyckman, FHA now gives you a higher appraisal on un-
derground if, in fact, that increases the value of the property.
2. On installation, Seattle City Light has been using local im-
provement districts for undergrounding for conversion from another
system.
3. The panel has discussed this problem almost entirely in terms
of initial costs. Underground facilities generally have longer life
and the O. & M. costs are less. We find this brings the two annual
costs much closer together. In rare cases, underground is actually
378 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
cheaper. The real test of costs is what are the annual costs, not what
is the initial investment.
4. Mr. Nelson may want to comment on this. Under the Col-
lier-Burns Act of California, the highway right-of-way is multipur-
pose. This is the only State where this is recognized. All the other
States insist that the right-of-way is like the railroad, which prohibits
other utilities to get on except by sufferance. The utility corridor, or
whatever you want to call it, is one of the things I would like to see
explored further, particularly by the new panel that the Federal
Power Commission is bringing into being.
A DELEGATE. No amount of aesthetic redesign of transmission
turrets can make up for the destroyed homes, for the desecrated
landscape and for the loss to communities that result in the pathway
of these turret lines.
Why hasn't there been advantage taken of technological advances
that do not require utilities overground, such as gas turbines that
are being used by other visionary utilities?
Mr. SWIDLER. Well, there are certain troubles with gas turbines.
One, they're not very efficient. They give off a lot of air pollutants.
They are not very good for the community where they are located.
They have a high noise problem that really will create a neighbor-
hood inconvenience. And in addition to that, there is a question
involved as to whether this is the right way to make use of natural
gas supply on a year-round basis, whether it contributes to the best
use of our exhaustible resource of natural gas. These units are, for
the most part, peaking units, which are too expensive to operate
on base load. You need a peaking unit when you hit your peak,
which may be the same time that your natural gas peak occurs.
You might thus need to build special gas transmission facilities to be
sure you would have desired capacity there when you need it. For
all these reasons, they fit some places, but they don't fit every place.
Mrs. ALEXANDER SAUNDERS. This question goes along with what
Mr. Bennett has been saying : What control may a community exert
or expect to obtain by legislation to prohibit overhead lines or to
request underground lines when the power that is being transmitted
is not used by the community in question?
Mr. BENNETT. Briefly, you run into this question, that a local
ordinance may be unconstitutional under State law because the
matter is of statewide concern.
THE UNDERGROUND INSTALLATION OF UTILITIES 379
I suspect in California that one community couldn't have electric
lines underground and the next community above ground, and so
on. It is a matter of statewide concern, and local ordinances run
into that danger. This is why State control is what is required.
Mrs. WILLIAM G. REYMOND. As a housewife, I think we should
not fail to point out what a wonderful job the utilities do and have
done in supplying our utility services. They keep us cool in the sum-
mer, warm in the winter and cook our food, and do all the other
things which we would miss otherwise. In fact, Hurricane Hilda,
which blew into Louisiana last October, knocked our power out for
four days and brought closely to our mind how important utilities
are and how much we depend on them.
But I think utilities for the most part, although they supply us
with something very important, have been negligent in doing just the
minimum in preserving the beauty of our country. I am glad to see
that so much work has been done on improving the design of the
facilities, for I am aware of a pipeline situation in our local refinery
which is comparable. They had so much confusion in the pipes,
they finally took them all up from underground and organized them
on well-designed overhead tracks through the refinery. Now, they
have become an aesthetic asset, not an eyesore.
The utility companies are missing a bet in not doing something like
this with their wires. A well-designed pole and well-organized lines
could actually remind the consumer, as he drives down the highway,
that these wires keep him cool in the summer and warm in the winter.
A DELEGATE. A gentleman here asked the question of multiple
use of rights-of-way, and there was no discussion and no answer. I
should like to ask Mr. Bennett or Mr. Dyckman if there is any reason
why various utilities shouldn't use the same right-of-way and thereby
condemn less property.
Mr. LISCHER. Speaking only for the area that I am familiar with,
we have underway an intensive program to put high-voltage trans-
mission lines on railroad rights-of-way wherever possible. We
think this is a benefit to us, to our consumers, and to the railroads.
Just recently we completed an arrangement with the Illinois Tollway
Commission, whereby we can actually put powerlines on their right-
of-way for a given distance. I think there is much to be said in
favor of this.
779-5956525
380 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
Mr. DYCKMAN. There is also much to be said for having a single
trench, if you are going underground, for more than one utility sys-
tem. There are some technical problems in this, but, in the very
long haul, I think we are going to have to plan for such systems.
Many utilities are changing their technology, making new installa-
tions and replacing existing equipment. It seems to me, when this
is done, we shouldn't have a lot of incremental decisions, one piled
on the other, without regard to some long-run shared interest. The
community may have to find the way to do this which will be most
economical and in the long run, most aesthetic.
I am looking for the time when the telephone people, who have
problems with this now, are sharing common rights-of-way in com-
mon trenches perhaps with the power transmitters and others.
Mrs. SUSAN STONE. I live in the franchise of the Illinois Power
Co., and perhaps Mr. Lischer knows something about them (and
their operations) that I don't know. I suspect they haven't heard
about some of the suggestions that have been mentioned by the panel
today. I wonder very seriously whether a compilation of these sug-
gestions will automatically go to all power companies throughout
America.
Mr. CISLER. It is a very good thought, and I can assure you that
much of what has been said here will be passed on.
Mrs. STONE. Thank you.
I have one other question, and that is, will the panel make spe-
cific recommendations to the President tomorrow on Federal incen-
tive programs, perhaps to help power companies in local communities
shift from above ground to below ground in existing installations
and shift to some of the schemes that Mr. Wilcox mentioned, more
compatible substations and transformers, this sort of thing? If ex-
pense is a factor in shifting, can we look forward to Federal incentive
recommendations from your panel?
Mr. CISLER. There has been no decision made on what the panel
will say, but I can assure you that much of what you point out is
already being done.
Mr. McMuLLiN. I would like to comment to the point raised by
the lady just now. I know that the American Public Power Asso-
ciation is carrying on a very aggressive program to bring to the at-
tention of their membership the need for meeting the community
THE UNDERGROUND INSTALLATION OF UTILITIES 381
responsibility in this area. I know, Mr. Cisler, that your Edison
Electric Institute is doing the same. Mr. Gisler is the immediate
past president of that organization. I am the immediate past presi-
dent of the Public Power Association.
RALPH LOGHER. I was a little disturbed by the statement that the
new development seemed to lend itself best to the underground in-
stallations. Frankly, that would only be compounding the problem
that we have in the older communities. I believe it is because of
the great volume of business that was generated not by suburbia but
by the good old section of the town, where much of the industry is
located, and many of our pollution and other problems, that the elec-
tric companies, private and public, are in the sound and enviable
position they are in today. Therefore, I would urge, even though it
may be a little cheaper to put them underground in suburbia, our
problem is to prevent the blight and to beautify the areas that need
it most, not out in the new and fresh, clean areas, but in the older
parts of the old cities of the United States.
Therefore, I would hope that the private and public power com-
panies will not put all their underground installations on the outskirts
of cities where it is less expensive rather than where we need them
most.
Secondly it is very encouraging that you reckon the cost of under-
ground versus overhead at a ratio of 1 y% to 1. A few years ago,
when I hoped we could do this in Cleveland, it was then 10 to 1
or 20 to 1 . Now it is down to a point where it is much more efficient
and feasible.
But do you reckon in the costs, Mr. Wilcox, such things as the
cost of the lawsuit when a crane, as happened recently near Cleve-
land, hits an overhead line and a man gets killed or when two or
three of these monstrous towers get blown over, as happened not
too long ago in our part of the country, when we have long periods
of outages, and the public is inconvenienced? Are these things
reckoned as well as the aesthetic considerations and as well as the
planning considerations?
It seems to me also, there is the important consideration of lower
fire rates when you don't have these hazards. I suspect, but I am
no authority on this, that if you were to reckon all of these costs, you
might find that it is not 1 5/2 to 1 ; it very well might be 1 to 1 .
382 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
ALLAN TEMKO. I have two short questions. One might be ad-
dressed to Mr. Swidler at the national level and Mr. Bennett at the
State level.
The Woodside powerline controversy, mentioned earlier, was a
direct result of the large-scale Federal investment, $125 million, on
the Stanford campus for a linear accelerator, and, indeed, the power-
lines on the peninsula of San Francisco, very large installations there,
are all heavily affected by large-scale Federal investment, say, in the
Lockheed plant, at Sunnyvale, which is a big power consumer. Is
it possible for the Federal Government to take an overview of this
magnitude, to anticipate needs which often conflict with other forms
of development? The same complex of powerlines has marred the
city of Forest City, a large-scale, so-called new town, only a short
distance away; powerlines go through the center of that new, so-
called planned community.
The second short question, perhaps to Mr. Wilcox: What of re-
search and development which might be of only marginal immediate
interest to the private utility companies and the manufacturers,
such as wireless transmission of energy, or say the application of an
invisible wire amplitron, which the Raytheon people conceived?
Can the Nation in some way hasten large-scale application of such
revolutionary devices?
Mr. WILCOX. I would say this is a very great distance in the
future. I know of no feasible way now to transmit even small
amounts of power which could be utilized by you or by me in our
homes by this method.
And while I will not say that we will never do it, I will say that
the time is very much in the future, so far away, that I think it is
generations rather than decades.
Mr. CISLER. Mr. Swidler will answer the first part of your
question.
Mr. SWIDLER. Or a part of it. I think everyone would concede
that there are high-priority areas where additional expense of under-
grounding is warranted, and, indeed, there is a good deal of under-
ground in the congested centers of most of our major cities.
An English article had a good phrase for it. It said that under-
grounding should be reserved for areas of high congestion or "places
where the visual amenities are in the highest category," pointing
out that for one mile of undergrounding of 275,000 kv. (a voltage
THE UNDERGROUND INSTALLATION OF UTILITIES 383
which is used in the United Kingdom but not here) , they would have
an additional cost equal to the total amount appropriated annually
by Parliament for all historic sites in England and Wales.
So I think how much you underground depends on how you
manage your total resources in meeting all of your problems. If
this is it, there is some money you should be spending for under-
grounding, but it is so very expensive that if you are planning to
do a good deal of it, it raises a question as to whether it is the right
way for us to use national assets.
Mr. CISLER. I think this points out the great need for better
understanding on the part of the public in general of some of the
great problems that are involved, particularly in the high-voltage
transmission.
HAL CLARK. We are meeting this same problem all through my
area, including the Keystone project. When this project came up,
the engineers couldn't see where there could be any other thing done
except to continue pounding the stakes down and getting the land
prepared for a plant on Hendrix Island on the Delaware River. It
seemed they had a feeling that there wasn't any alternative, such as
the very fine views we are getting here today from this great panel.
We have had a number of meetings, and the last one I attended
was at the Overseas Press Club in New York. We had representa-
tives from Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and
Delaware. Most of the people there are for private enterprise, like
I am, 100 percent, but they felt, as one man expressed it, that if we
can spend $40 to $100 billion to get to the moon, we certainly can
well afford to save the face of the land that produces the taxes to
put the man on the moon.
Therefore, they thought there should be a crash program, and that
the Federal Government should be interested in it. As for Mr.
Temko, they very much backed the position that there should be
government control over where these lines shall go.
Now we are facing imminent building of some of these projects
at the present time. In our county of Bucks County, we have a very
fine planning commission, and we are meeting with the engineers
of the Keystone project, very fine people. We know they have a
problem. We know that we cannot stop the building up of elec-
tricity, because in the Delaware Basin alone we represent 1 percent
of the land of this country, but we have developed 17 percent of
384 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
the wealth and 17 percent of the taxes. This is going to double and
redouble, and it means more electricity.
We are very much concerned that this great complex from ocean
to ocean may develop before there is serious thought and serious
action in getting something underway. We cannot talk of beginning
maybe in ten years. We think it should be expedited and it should
be expedited in a way that will not cripple the big public utility upon
which we depend.
Dr. RICHARD GOODWIN. I would like to make one comment. We
have been hearing a great deal about the engineering problems in
getting power around the country and it is very evident that we will
have above-ground lines for some time to come. I am a botanist
by background and this conference, which is concerned with beauty,
should be concerned with the flora underneath these powerlines. We
are talking about many hundreds of thousands of acres of land in the
country. I would like to suggest to the panel that they consider mak-
ing recommendations to the President and to their companies about
giving more consideration to the hiring on their staffs of knowledge-
able ecologists to advise in the management of the vegetation.
I will only refer to the problem of brownout, which many of us
have deplored, going across the country with the indiscriminate use
of herbicides. This is an unnecessary thing, and I think the power
companies can actually make a financial saving by using better eco-
logical techniques.
WILLIAM CECIL. I don't have a local problem. I think we lost
sight a little bit of the natural beauty aspects of power transmission.
Power has to come in. It has to be transported. I would like to
suggest that a more, shall we say, conservative line of thought be taken
in clearing operations for the powerlines. A transmission line needs
a certain large amount of area, but not as much as has normally been
taken. Instead of chopping down all the trees, we should chop off
the dead trees that will fall on the line and leave the healthy ones
beside them. We can cut down the acreage with a little bit of land-
scape planning in the rights-of-way. We can do a lot to diminish
the course of a straight-line cut.
I know, when you fly across the country, this is what we see,
a straight-line cut. I don't think it is necessary. I think that with
good planning on the part of the utilities, you can have your over-
head lines, which are the economic ones, and you can get your power.
What we are really discussing is the beauty of this country. You
THE UNDERGROUND INSTALLATION OF UTILITIES 385
change your rights-of-way and leave shrubs, thus taking care of the
straight-line problems without increasing major maintenance
problems.
CHARLES BRIDGES. I agree with the gentleman from Cleveland
when he urges us to give more consideration to undergrounding the
utilities in the older districts of town.
For example, when the panel members say that 50 percent of "new
construction" has underground utilities, the figures sound very im-
pressive and we might easily assume that a creditable job is being
done. Remember, however, that in any one year less than 5 percent
of the total area of any town is what might be called "new construc-
tion". And if only half of that 5 percent is underground, it means
that only 2}/> percent of the total area of any town is going under-
ground in any one year! Let's also face up to the fact that if 50
percent of "new construction" is going underground, the other 50
percent is not going under which means that in fact we are not
winning the fight against the poles, and that we are instead losing
ground and adding every year to the jungle of wood and wire.
The only solution is to start now to go underground in the older
districts.
Consider also that any one pole in an area of "new construction"
may be seen by half a dozen people in any one day, whereas a pole
in an older area particularly downtown may be seen by thousands
of people daily. This means that the 5 percent which we started
out with, but which became 2 l /z percent upon examination, now has
been reduced to less than hundreths of a percent in terms of visual
impact and aggravation value.
Let's not accept "new construction" figures which lull us into
complacency. Let's instead concentrate on going underground with
our utilities in those areas which count most downtown, and along
our highways.
Mrs. VALLEY KNUDSEN. For the past few years we have been
making quite a study of the problem of putting utilities underground.
Very little has been said today about the danger of broken wires and
the creating of fires. These broken wires were caused by wind. We
went through the fire in Glendale caused by broken wires in three
different places. I wonder how serious you feel this is, having utili-
ties above ground in case of wind and fire.
Mr. CISLER. It is a question we will consider in our deliberations.
386 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
Statements Submitted for the Record
WILLIAM M. BENNETT.* In the State of California the public is
becoming more and more concerned about the appearance of utility
installations and facilities. The trend, particularly in new subdivi-
sions, is toward undergrounding.
So far as transmission lines are concerned, while complete beauty
is an ideal, no way has yet been found toward a satisfactory formula
for apportioning costs.
The key to aesthetics inevitably is cost. We accept the premise
that the general public and rate payers are aware of the problem of
costs and despite that fact wish to arrive at that point in time when
both distribution and transmission systems generally speaking will
be underground.
As to costs, as a society we have learned a great deal about the
benefits which can be achieved through utilization of the economic
system. The most timely example of massive economic wellbeing
comes from the recent Federal tax reductions. And here may be
the key which will permit the realization of aesthetics in the utility
field and which will solve the problem of costs. There is really
nothing new or novel in granting a tax benefit for certain purposes.
For example the statutory depletion allowance represents public
policy to the end that incentives be provided for the exploration and
dvelopment of oil and gas. If this type of tax benefit, which has
been estimated to cost the Treasury Department $2 billion annually,
may be accorded for the development of oil and gas, then so also is
it not only possible to confer upon public utilities such a benefit but
in the long run may be even more socially desirable. A balancing of
social and economic values may indicate that favored tax treatment
should be channeled in new directions. This is not to say that this
treatment is the sole or exclusive method whereby the problem of
cost may be met. It should be remembered that the National Power
Survey projects enormous savings in the electric industry and prop-
erly states that these savings should be passed on to rate payers.
Benefits to rate payers can take many forms beyond that of lower
electric rates and one of the permanent benefits would be that such
savings together with such tax incentives as may be required shall be
utilitized to create a system of underground utilities for the nation.
*This is an extension of the remarks made by Mr. Bennett during the panel
discussion.
THE UNDERGROUND INSTALLATION OF UTILITIES 387
We should not be deterred in any event by the immediate cost
problem since as I have pointed out, economic tools exist both within
the electric utility industry itself and by virtue of tax programs to
meet this problem. Undergrounding shoud be viewed as a capital
investment, the benefits not to be measured by cost alone. There
is the enhancement to the landscape which has its own benefit and
which in our society can be translated into an improvement in prop-
erty values .
I urge for discussion and study the desirability and feasibility of
conferring tax incentives upon public utilities so as to realize the ideal
of undergrounding and secondly I urge exploration of the precise
form the savings to be realized from power pooling and interties
should take.
CARLTON J. DAISS. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers has given a great deal of attention to the problems of un-
derground distribution and the improved appearance of overhead
construction. Mr. C. A. Woodrow is chairman of IEEE's Power
Group and Mr. L. J. Weed is chairman of the Underground and
Distribution Subcommittee of its Transmission and Distribution
Committee. They have prepared the following summary:
Some 10 or 12 years ago several privately owned electric utilities
in the country began trial installations of underground distribution
for some of their rapidly expanding developments.
This concept was rapidly adopted by other utilities and soon there
were many similar installations all over the United States. Each
utility set up its own standards of construction and consequently
there were nearly as many different types of installations as there
were utilities using them.
In order to achieve a semblance of standardization and uniformity
in underground residential distribution the Insulated Conductors
Committee and the Transmission and Distribution Committee of
IEEE set up task groups to study the problem. Questionnaires were
sent to all companies known to have installations of this type to de-
termine what practices, if any, were similar in the majority of com-
panies. The replies from these questionnaires were carefully an-
alyzed and a report was prepared indicating the types of construction
preferred by a majority of the companies.
In order to adequately present and discuss the information ob-
tained from the questionnaires, a Special Technical Conference on
388 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
Underground Residential Distribution was held in St. Louis, Mo.,
April 21-23, 1964, at which a total of 35 technical papers were pre-
sented by utility engineers and manufacturers' representatives from
all areas of the country describing their practices and equipment.
These papers had previously been bound in one volume as IEEE
Publication No. T-160 entitled "Special Technical Conference on
Underground Residential Distribution" which were available to all
registrants prior to the technical sessions. This gave everyone a
chance to read the papers prior to their presentation and to discuss
them with complete understanding. Adequate time was provided
for the discussions which were very informative and brought out
many new ideas. These discussions were subsequently bound in
one volume as IEEE Publication No. T-160-S and sent to all reg-
istrants as a supplement to the original volume.
In conjunction with the Special Technical Conference, there was
also an exposition consisting of exhibits by 53 manufacturers of equip-
ment used for underground distribution such as pad-mounted trans-
formers, primary and secondary cable both for direct burial and con-
duit installation, and other accessories and equipment.
The conference was attended by over 1,100 registrants from every
State in the Union and several foreign countries, and an additional
400 persons attended the exposition but did not register for the con-
ference.
A second Special Technical Conference on Underground Residen-
tial Distribution will be held in Chicago, 111., in September 1966.
This conference will be similar to the one held in St. Louis, but its
purpose will be to bring everyone up-to-date on new developments
and new equipment designed for increased economies in installing
underground distribution. It is anticipated that we will have at least
50 percent more registrants and probably double the number of ex-
hibitors at the Chicago Conference.
At the 1965 summer Power Meeting in Detroit, Mich., a sympo-
sium will be held on Underground Distribution in Medium Load
Density Areas which will consist of some 18 papers on current types
of underground service to commercial areas, shopping centers, and
large housing developments including "high-rise" apartment build-
ings. These papers along with the discussions will be bound in a
single volume and be available to all registrants. In connection with
this symposium, there will be an inspection trip for all interested per-
sons to see some of these installations on the Detroit Edison system.
THE UNDERGROUND INSTALLATION OF UTILITIES 389
Paralleling the activities in underground distribution, IEEE has
given considerable attention to improving the appearance and in-
creasing the reliability of the existing overhead construction. Many
studies have been made and papers presented on such things as im-
proved design of transmission towers, harmonizing color of equip-
ment, elimination of crossarms on distribution poles, use of cabled
secondary mains, elimination of series street-lighting circuits, use of
higher voltages for distribution circuits, reducing the height of sub-
station structures, proper landscaping of substations and many other
areas of improvement in appearance of all structures that at the pres-
ent time must be maintained above ground.
JOHN W. DYCKMAN.* It is not my intention to argue the case
for underground utilities. The purpose of this conference is to dis-
cuss contributions to the preservation of scenic beauty, and there are
few who deny the impairment of view, landscape or cityscape, im-
posed by overhead utility lines. The argument for the continued
use of overhead utility lines has been advanced almost entirely on
economic grounds. It is my belief that these arguments use too
narrow a cost accounting base, undervalue a variety of social bene-
fits, and even on economic grounds are excessively short-run in their
outlook.
The evidence of the enhancement of property value premiums in
superior residential developments in which unsightly overhead utili-
ties have been avoided suggest that the social valuations in question
have a way, over time, of finding their way back into market valua-
tions. Accordingly, I wish to concentrate our attentions on ways
in which we might act to secure these greater long-term gains.
1. Since the premium attached to developments which avoid un-
sightly overhead utilities is most apparent at the time of resale, while
the improvements themselves are paid for at the time of initial de-
velopment, steps are necessary to bring the cost and valuation into
more intimate phase. As a step in this direction, we should urge
the FHA to issue directives which explicitly recognize underground
utilities as a site improvement and a premium to the property for
loan purposes. If the FHA and other agencies which influence or
make loans, were to add their weight to the devaluation of develop-
ments which violate these principles of scenic preservation and to
support those which actively enhance the character of the develop-
*This is an extension of the remarks made by Mr. Dyckman during the panel
discussion.
390 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
ment, a major step could be taken to overcome obstacles of somewhat
greater initial cost in the provision of underground utilities.
2. To secure the cooperation of utilities in this program, it is rec-
ommended that underground utilities be included in the "billboard"
and "scenic" provisions of the 3 percent money made available under
the Federal highway program. If underground utilities are further
added to the requirement for one-half percent bonus money made
available to municipalities for scenic controls under this act, munici-
palities and other civil subdivisions would have tangible incentives
for local regulations and other actions which might be taken to secure
underground utilities.
3. Grants and loans made available to local governments under
the community facilities program should be restricted to those im-
provements which do not violate scenic amenities. If 20 percent
Federal aid money were made available for new utilities develop-
ments employing acceptable underground techniques with an in-
crease to perhaps 30 percent aid for the relocation of utilities which
are asthetically substandard, municipalities and locally owned or
controlled utilities would be able to overcome any cost disadvantages
resulting from the somewhat heavier initial capital outlay required
by underground utilities.
4. Municipalities should take the initiative in creating economies
of scale in which all utilities might participate. As an example of
such economies, localities might consolidate easement and create a
technically superior single trench system for the joint use of various
utilities. Federal assistance for research in the technical problems
of utility trenches could easily be made available under existing
programs.
5. States should overhaul legislation under which assessment dis-
tricts might be formed to provide long-range financing of improve-
ments, including the redevelopment and relocation of existing utilities
systems that scar or deface scenic areas.
6. A public information program should be mounted to make
available accurate data on the real costs, and the public stakes, which
are involved in the substitution of unobtrusive utility systems for
presently offensive ones.
H. J. JENSEN. Manufacturers serving the electrical transmission
and distribution industry, in our observation, are devoting a great
deal of effort and have made considerable progress in developing
THE UNDERGROUND INSTALLATION OF UTILITIES 391
and manufacturing equipment and components to make aesthetic
systems more economical.
As a major supplier to the industry, the Electrical Products Divi-
sion of Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corp. has directed a sub-
stantial portion of its research and development programs to this
goal, and has been encouraged by the reception given new develop-
ments by both private and public utilities. The introduction of
new cable constructions and insulations is one of the important fac-
tors which have enabled the reduction of the cost differentials of
underground electrical distribution in the lower voltages and even
up to 35,000 volts with the resultant rapidly increasing growth of
URD installations.
Progress is now being made on insulated conductors for higher
voltages. We ourselves are currently collaborating with a major
southeastern utility in a test installation of 115,000-volt cable utiliz-
ing plastic insulation in direct ground burial for underground trans-
mission. Although it is still too early to gauge the success of this
particular test, it is noteworthy that manufacture of cable of this
type has only recently become possible.
While great strides have been and will be made in underground
distribution, industry attention has also been given to the improve-
ment in the appearance of overhead lines through the introduction
of more pleasingly designed equipment and conductors such as pre-
assembled aerial cable.
As was brought out in panel discussions, extra high voltage trans-
mission presently has to be by overhead lines because of the extremely
high cost ratio of underground construction for this purpose. There-
fore it is desirable that every possible step be taken to improve the
appearance of EHV transmission lines. Because of its lighter weight,
aluminum conductors such as ACAR, a new type developed by
Kaiser Aluminum which eliminates the customary steel core, allows
towers to be placed farther apart; for example, four towers may fre-
quently be used per mile instead of five.
Progress has also been made in reducing the cost, weight, main-
tenance, and silhouette of transmission towers. Aluminum guyed-
V and guyed-Y towers can be assembled away from the installation
site, flown there by helicopter and installed on a small concrete base.
From an aesthetic standpoint, the slim structures are less visible
against the skyscape, and it is not necessary to hack access roads for
trucks and workmen through the forest areas, either for installation or
maintenance.
392 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
To accomplish further and more rapid progress in the future, we
would recommend that collaboration between electrical utilities and
their suppliers be intensified, on both an informal and formal basis,
to develop products and methods which will improve the aesthetics
of transmission and distribution networks on the most economical
basis. Both utilities and manufacturers commonly apply value
analysis methods to increase their performance and reduce costs. By
linking their value analyses together as it applies to this problem,
they can achieve faster progress towards the goal.
L. F. LISCHER.* In addressing ourselves to electric transmission
lines (those operating at 66,000 volts or higher) and not to under-
ground distribution, the problem is of much greater magnitude. In
underground distribution great strides are being made so that in
the near future such service may be provided at costs economically
competitive with overhead distribution. For Commonwealth Edi-
son last year 50 percent of all new residential subdivisions were sup-
plied by underground distribution, and the total number of customers
served from underground lines is now 140,000.
The problems in underground transmission are far from simple.
For example, Commonwealth Edison figures show that to provide
the same line capacity underground as overhead at 138,000 volts,
costs on the average 1 6 times as much ( about $400,000 per mile for
a single underground line); at 345,000 volts this ratio jumps to
45 times as costly for underground. A fact sometimes not readily
apparent is that when underground transmission lines fail, as much
as five days may be required to locate the point of failure and to make
repairs. This, of course, necessitates duplicate facilities to avoid long
interruptions and thus adds to the cost.
Many metropolitan areas already have extensive underground
transmission systems. Taking the Chicago area as an example, we
have today 50 percent of all our transmission investment in under-
ground lines, and on a mileage basis this represents 15 percent of all
transmission line miles.
There is need for considerable research on two fronts. One is
how to build cables economically for voltages higher than 345,000
volts (which is the highest voltage cable we know how to construct
today) ; and second, how to provide lower cost cables and installation
methods for those voltages for which cables are currently being built.
*This is an extension of the remarks made by Mr. Lischer during the panel
discussion.
THE UNDERGROUND INSTALLATION OF UTILITIES 393
It seems to me that there is another avenue of approach to
aesthetics that may be worthy of consideration; we might make much
more pleasing in appearance the overhead tower line structures being
built today. For example, we are right now designing a 138,000 volt
double circuit tower line using high strength tubular steel poles with
simple tubular upswept arms in place of the conventional lattice
tower made of angle iron steel. Such modernistic designs (and some
have already been built elsewhere) can be pleasing to the eye and
be built economically. I think much can and should be done along
these lines.
The problems posed here are certainly most challenging and will
demand the very best efforts of manufacturers and electric utilities.
ROBERT L. PERKINS, Jr. Although overhead transmission lines
have a dramatic effect on scenery and produce acute special prob-
lems such as the destruction of bird life particularly at concentra-
tion points in wet lands and shallow water areas, underground utili-
ties such as pipelines can also do great damage to scenic and natural
values. This is particularly true on lands with forests and streams
and small waterways.
As is the case with highways and other construction projects,
particularly those backed by the power of eminent domain, a major
need is to provide some orderly means of finding the relative values
involved. Route locations and construction methods should be
determined insofar as possible by an objective weighing of the eco-
nomic and convenience factors against the destruction that will be
caused, including that to scenic and natural assets. This means
that those with a knowledge and appreciation of such assets must be
involved in making the decisions.
In cases where the Federal Power Commission is involved there
is at present no real opportunity for such a process since the Com-
missioners and the supporting administrative staff who make the
decisions are not selected for their knowledge of matters relating to
natural beauty. Further, many citizens who have an interest in a
project site may have no practical means of finding out about pro-
posals until after a decision has been made, since most people do not
maintain a scrutiny of the Federal Register where notice is given.
R. J. McMuLLiN.* Let me begin by saying that I am very cog-
nizant of and deeply concerned about the problem we are gathered
here to talk about.
*This is an extension of the remarks made by Mr. McMullin during the panel
discussion.
394 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
I think I can speak for most of us here representing the electric
utility industry when I say that throughout our history we have given
emphasis to perfection of technology, continuity of service, quality of
service in other respects such as voltage regulation and so forth. In
addition, one of our foremost considerations has been to lower con-
sumer costs. In this regard, I don't believe the electric utility indus-
try can be matched. A quick look at the average cost per kilowatt-
hour over past years compared to other consumer costs will reveal
this fact.
This has all been good, but a new consideration has been coming
to the front during the past few years. Due to increasing pressures of
public desire and opinion and our own realization of the need
improving the appearance of our service facilities in the community
has been added to our list of goals. In planning distribution and
transmission systems, many utilities have already adopted a philos-
ophy giving weight to the factor of appearance, as a community
benefit, equal to those traditional factors of need, function and cost.
At the Salt River Project, we have coined the expression "com-
munity styling" which embodies this philosophy. "Community
styling" is the concept against which we are measuring our construc-
tion plans.
To achieve improved appearance, the most desirable situation
would be attained if all of our transmission and distribution could be
installed underground. A great deal of progress has been made
toward this end in the area of lower voltage distribution systems. To
achieve this goal for transmission lines in the near future appears
at the moment to be very unrealistic.
To measure progress in underground residential distribution,
Electric Light and Power magazine reported in its April 1965 issue
that results from a widespread survey of electric utilities indicated :
1 . Many utilities predict total underground residential distribution
for all new installations in five to ten years.
2. Ninety-two percent of the utilities surveyed in 1964 were open-
minded or in favor of underground residential distribution, whereas
60 percent were opposed in 1960.
3. In total-electric "Gold Medallion" developments, the ratio of
underground to overhead costs was approximately 1^4 to 1, and
many of the utilities absorb the cost difference of underground to
obtain the higher kilowatt-hour usage in Gold Medallion develop-
ments.
THE UNDERGROUND INSTALLATION OF UTILITIES 395
4. Present design dates back to 1959 and service reliability has
been excellent. (This tends to eliminate a major question mark for
many utilities. )
5. The swing to underground residential distribution is accelerat-
ing as the cost ratio of underground to overhead lowers.
Practical answers are being found by electrical manufacturers and
utilities. Residential distribution is going underground and that
part of the problem will soon be approaching complete solution.
The picture looks vastly different, however, when considering high
voltage transmission systems.
The present difference in costs between overhead construction and
underground is so great that underground construction is definitely
impractical except in those metropolitan high-rise areas where it
can be justified by extremely high load density. This cost difference
has been stated to be 5-15 times greater for underground under
some circumstances, and as high as 50 times greater for extra high
voltage lines in other situations. I can offer little hope that this prob-
lem can be solved in the near future.
As frustrating as this problem may appear, there are, however,
things we can do and should do.
First, it seems to me, all of us should give encouragement with time,
effort and money to intensified research for improved underground
transmission line materials, equipment and technology to foreshorten
the time necessary to reach the goal of underground transmission.
Perhaps one of the answers might be found in underground direct
current transmission, if concentrated research were able to overcome
the termination problems and costs.
Next, why not direct our attention into those areas where interim
measures might produce improvements in appearance of these
lines, although falling short of the ultimate of underground installa-
tions? In this regard, I would like to suggest a few ideas which,
though untested, might stimulate thought and discussion.
1. When laying out the route of long distance high voltage lines,
why not try to select rights-of-way that would tend to hide the line,
blend it into the surroundings through which it will travel, and place
it so as to preserve natural scenic beauty even though hi isolated
areas? Perhaps if we give equal weight to the factor of appearance
in our considerations, the shortest distance between two points isn't a
straight line any more.
779-595 65 26
396 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
2. For those stretches of these lines approaching cities, why not
start right now to find ways and means to go underground even at
present costs?
3. As a corollary to the ideas I have just mentioned, perhaps public
agencies such as cities, counties, States, and even the Federal Govern-
ment should assume proportionate shares of the added cost of follow-
ing out these suggestions. This might be accomplished by granting
the electric utilities specific tax credits which would have the effect of
relieving them of the entire burden of the added cost attributable to
improved appearance and preservation of natural beauty.
All costs of utility operations must finally be paid by the customers,
as we all know. It can be forcefully argued that to pass these added
costs on to the electric consumer would be an inequity, because the
benefits of beautification work do not accrue solely to these customers.
We can all find illustrations of this fact, I'm sure. For example, a
transmission line might be rerouted to preserve the natural beauty
and public view of the Painted Desert or Meteor Crater in Arizona.
How much of the cost to do so should be paid by the electric cus-
tomers of the city of Los Angeles, or the Salt River Project or the
Arizona Public Service Co.? In my opinion, there is merit to the idea
that such costs should be spread over a broader base. The base
should be determined by examining the question, "To whom do the
benefits flow from the beautification work which caused the added
cost?"
My comments are not intended to represent pat answers to a
problem as complex as this one. I do hope though that they might
provoke constructive thought. This is one of the greatest challenges
ever to confront the electrical industry. If we probe our imagina-
tions, if we turn our creative resources to the task, if we can have the
support of our government's leadership (as is being evidenced here at
this meeting), the electrical industry will be able to measure up to
the job and continue to occupy a position of major leadership in the
growth and progress of our Nation.
JACK B. ROBERTSON. Except for the United States, the industrial-
ized nations have generally adopted a policy of undergrounding of
utility lines. Modern insulation materials have now made possible
the long life undergrounding of utility lines within the economic reach
of an affluent nation.
To facilitate the burial of utility lines, the following is recom-
mended : ( a ) Require utility lines be buried leading to all newly con-
THE UNDERGROUND INSTALLATION OF UTILITIES 397
structed Federally-insured houses or housings, and (b) require an
effective program for undergrounding of utility lines (including the
requirement that all public and private new construction and major
remodeling include undergrounding) as an element of every urban
renewal "workable program" and as a precondition of all Federal
renewal, housing, community facilities, urban highway, landscaping,
etc., assistance.
GLENN L. SMITH. Although much of the Nation's ugliness
abounds in urban areas, a lot of America's otherwise scenic rural
vistas are blighted by a multiplicity of manmade objects d'horror.
Leading the field, of course, are billboards, auto junkyards, dilapi-
dated housing and scarred, mined-out countryside; but unsightly
overhead transmission and distribution utility lines contribute more
than an equal share to the total problem.
Some research is being conducted to bring about a technological
breakthrough in undergrounding high-voltage transmission lines.
There seems to be no real promise of much being accomplished in
the near future to get costs down to practical limits. Thus, we can
expect to have the tall towers cut their swath through the valleys and
over the hills and mountains for years to come. But what about rural
electric and telephone distribution lines?
Here is an area where much can be done and much is being done.
The Rural Electrification Administration estimates 70 percent of all
new line construction by its telephone system borrowers will be under-
ground. Translated into dollars and route miles of lines, an esti-
mated $33.3 million of new loan funds will help construct 28,000
miles of rural underground telephone lines. The aesthetic by-prod-
uct of this, of course, is a less cluttered and more lovely rural vista.
Even before buried plant came into being in rural areas the Rural
Electrification Administration helped lessen the ugliness of electric
lines and poles by pioneering longer line spans, and in dispensing
with the use of crossarms and related appurtenances. The longer
spans substantially reduced the number of poles needed along the
roadways. And this, together with the elimination of crossarms,
resulted in much cleaner appearance and greatly minimized the
ugliness of above-ground utility facilities.
The REA-financed electric and telephone systems serve in better
than 89 percent of the 3,100 counties in the United States. The
CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
route miles of distribution lines of rural electric cooperatives consti-
tute over 50 percent of the Nation's total. This covers a lot of
ground. But even so, the rural electric cooperatives, higher costs
and other roadblocks notwithstanding, are intently interested in
undergrounding distribution lines. A substantial number of bor-
rowers have done some underground construction although few have
installed any sizeable lengths of primary cable to date. An inquiry
among these borrowers shows that they expect to install increasing
amounts of underground line in the future. In a memorandum
dated April 23, 1965, Secretary Freeman issued a policy statement
on natural beauty of the countryside. In this he promises support
of the President's program on natural beauty and included the fol-
lowing statement :
The Rural Electrification Administration will increase its emphasis
on development of rural utility installation methods to maintain and
enhance natural beauty. A continuing effort will be made to de-
velop ways for reducing costs of installing underground utility lines.
J. STANFORD SMITH. By making the restoration and preservation
of the Nation's natural beauty a part of our national purpose, Presi-
dent Johnson has extended a significant and exciting challenge.
It is a challenge that will find a warm response from the electrical
equipment manufacturers and the electric utilities of the Nation.
Electricity is said to be the cleanest and most versatile form of
energy yet discovered. Its intensive application to one after another
aspect of life has transformed the horse-drawn, steam-driven, gas-lit
America of Edison's time into the archetype civilization of the 20th
century.
It is no wonder then that Americans have developed an almost
insatiable appetite for more and more clean, safe electric power, and
that the Nation's utilities are spending more than $5 billion this year
just for the equipment to generate it, and deliver it to the consumer.
As they have since the age of electricity first dawned, the utilities
will use the major portion of their investment dollars in 1965 and
beyond for the transmission equipment which carries bulk power the
long distances from generating station to community, and for the
distribution equipment which reduces voltages to usable levels as it
delivers current to our homes, business establishments and other
points of use.
THE UNDERGROUND INSTALLATION OF UTILITIES 399
While this equipment carries a noiseless source of energy that
neither pollutes the air nor emits harmful radiation, there is the
challenge of aesthetic improvement. This panel has been asked how
the Nation might be served with abundant electric power at the same
time its natural beauties are preserved and enhanced.
First, as regards distribution, great progress has been made re-
cently. The degree to which the utilities have pioneered under-
ground distribution systems in their service areas has been limited
only by the ability of equipment manufacturers to develop the prod-
ucts and technology to make such installations feasible.
The great barrier, of course, has been cost. As recently as five
years ago, the cost of underground ranged up to five or six times
higher than overhead. Costs have now been reduced as much as
80 percent under ideal conditions with the development of such
new General Electric products as:
A cross-link polyethylene cable which makes it possible to bury
cables directly in the ground without the need of expensive cable
ducts.
A smaller transformer which can be modified to be buried in the
ground.
A factory cable termination which permits making cable termina-
tions in the field in minutes instead of hours.
These and other product advances, complemented by consulta-
tions and seminars with utility engineers, have helped make it pos-
sible for whole new communities to be served by distribution systems
completely below the ground. This development is clearly a har-
binger, for more and more utilities are finding that their customers
prefer underground whenever new technological progress can make
the cost differential small enough.
Nonetheless, it is imperative to keep in mind that such factors as
terrain, load density and water level prevent underground distribu-
tion from being feasible in many places at this time. General Electric
therefore has devoted increased attention to working with utilities
to improve the appearance of overhead lines already installed and
yet to be installed where underground is economically impractical.
This work includes : increasing the voltages of distribution circuits
so that only one circuit need now be installed where previously
several were required; introduction of a smaller, sky-gray trans-
former; use of side post insulators rather than cross arms where only
one circuit exists on a distribution pole; development of a polymer
400 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
pole top with no side appurtenances; and streamlining a factory pre-
wired lighting pole which provides five times as much light and no
more power consumption than units previously installed.
This type of physical improvement, combined with the lower cost
to the consumer, may make overhead preferable to underground in
many areas. Where this is so, the marriage of practicality and
aesthetics will continue to add dividends of value to the eye as well
as the purse.
Moving further back on the power system, the substations for
stepping higher voltages down to distribution levels have also been
facelifted. Utilities have for some time been building their new
substations with attractive low-height and modern designs which
blend more effectively into their surroundings and enhance neighbor-
ing property values.
Turning now to transmission, the problem in putting lines under-
ground is far greater than in distribution. Because underground
cannot dissipate the tremendous heat involved in transmission, its
cost can be more than 10 times greater than overhead, even where
the distances involved are relatively short.
Barring a research breakthrough not now on the horizon, this
great cost differential confronts us with the choice of utilizing present
transmission rights-of-way to the maximum or duplicating the towers
and lines which carry bulk electricity from generating station to com-
munity. Clearly, maximum utilization is by far the preferable choice,
from the standpoint of appearance as well as cost.
To this end, General Electric has continuously sought to increase
transmission line power capacity. Recent steps forward of major
significance were the introduction in 1961 of a power circuit breaker
which operates in one-thirtieth of a second and the subsequent de-
velopment of the highly sophisticated series capacitors in use today
across the Nation.
Simultaneously, several utilities have doubled the voltage ratings
of their lines with modest changes in existing structures, increasing
the power handling capacity by a factor of 4 to 1. Also, some
utilities have been able to make use of existing railroad rights-of-
way to bring power into urban load centers, a development which per-
mits trains to be electrified at reduced expense, and makes it possible
for the rails to move people and goods with increased speed, safety
and convenience.
THE UNDERGROUND INSTALLATION OF UTILITIES 401
Even greater advances in power transmission and distribution lie
ahead. Research and product development throughout the electrical
industry will not only keep electricity the consumer's greatest bar-
gain, but will also bring about new technologies and equipment
with the optimum combination of usefulness and beauty.
The utilities and electrical equipment manufacturers, in the pro-
gressive tradition of their industry, have never failed to respond to
a significant challenge. The restoration and preservation of Ameri-
ca's natural beauty is such a challenge.
ZAGH R. STEWART. Considered as a complete system the physical
plant of the electric utility industry represents a fascinating design
problem; technically extremely difficult, economically involved in
major investments, and physically composed of a mixture of the
most advanced as well as technologically obsolete components. For
the purpose of definition the design of the physical elements of this
industry can be called the architecture of energy. This encompasses
all distribution and transmission systems, generating plants of all sizes
from dams and powerhouses to local peaking generators, substations
and switchgear, television antennae, electrical distribution and trans-
mission hardware, and television and radio transmission towers.
The comprehensive approach generally advocated by the delegates
to the White House Conference on Natural Beauty, if directed to the
architecture of energy, would encourage an enormous amount of
progress toward beautification of the current and future installation
of all the components in the Nation's electrical system. Transmis-
sion line right-of-way placement, miniaturization of parts, develop-
ment of underground and overhead systems, camouflage or redesign
of television antennae, and the visual impact of present and future
utility systems on different urban, suburban, and countryside land-
scapes need improvement.
There is every evidence that the Nation's electric utility companies
are vitally interested in improving the architecture of energy. Sev-
eral western utilities have formed a utility appearance committee;
Allis Chalmers sponsored a national art contest called "the Art of
extra high voltage"; Kaiser Aluminum News published an issue on
"The Aesthetics of Electric Distribution"; the southern California
Edison Co. placed in service transmission lines designed by the indus-
trial designer, Dreyfuss; the Pacific Gas and Electric Co. has designed
and is installing the streamline distribution system ; Portland General
Electric has developed the Somerset system; and the Long Island
402 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
Lighting Go. has published definitive information on the cost of over-
head to underground conversion.
The most practical and efficient way to release information and
talent directed at the problem of improving the architecture of
energy would be the sponsorship of a national competition addressed
to all utility engineers, planners, landscape architects, architects, and
citizens, sponsored by the utilities, their suppliers, and beautification
and conservation organizations. The purpose of the competition
would be to increase the usefulness and beauty of all elements of the
physical plant of the electric utility industry. The harvest of ideas
from such a competition plus the generation of interest in the subject
would yield rich dividends.
CHAPTER 14
AUTOMOBILE JUNKYARDS
1:15 p.m., Tuesday, May 25
The Chairman, Mr. HAAR. This panel with its rather unfancy
title "junkyard," cuts across all the other themes that have been raised
at this Conference on Natural Beauty. It deals most obviously with
the highway problem; it deals with the city, since in many places,
it is a city problem ; it deals with the landscape and the rural areas,
as well.
And, of course, it is an area of great concern for citizen participa-
tion and for citizen action. In a way, the automobile junkyard is
symbolic of the entire proceedings here. It is the one clear and
present danger. It is the obvious sore often picked on, perhaps at
times unwisely. It has become a symbol and a legend of what hap-
pens in an affluent and technical society. It typifies the problem of
disposing of discards which a higher, continually higher, standard of
living has made possible.
This panel is composed of members of industry, those who pro-
duce and dismantle automobiles. In a sense, we will be dealing with
the recycling process, one which epitomizes what President Johnson
has said of the need of cooperation between government and indus-
try and the citizen.
I need only remind you of the references made in the message on
natural beauty which has been distributed at this conference. Sev-
eral times the President alluded to the urgent need to work toward
the elimination or screening of unsightly views and the need to
destroy junkyards and auto graveyards along our highways. And
Mrs. Johnson in an interview placed automobile junkyards No. 1
on her priority list of the uglies to be gotten rid of.
Members of the Panel on Automobile Junkyards were Roy Aber-
nethy, Charles M. Haar (Chairman), Harry Marley, Raymond E.
Morris, James Owens, Richard Sentner, and Paul Zinner.
403
404 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
This panel must wrestle with the whole spectrum of what we mean
by beauty, but in a microcosm. This has an advantage, as well as a
disadvantage. It meant we had to get down to brass tacks. In
principle, everyone is agreed upon beauty and how a great society
has to reflect its achievements and its goals and its physical setting.
When it comes to issues of who is to bear the cost or how to do it, we
begin to see the need for give and take and for the cooperative action
necessary if this problem is to be eliminated.
Some people have said that the untidiness reflected by the auto-
mobile, the abandoned hulk, and the automobile graveyard is part
of the growth of the industry in its early cycle. The President has
told us there is now a more mature insistence on having a higher
standard of environmental maintenance and has asked us to deal
specifically with the disfigurement and the eyesore of the nonoper-
ative and the abandoned automobile and the junkyard. I think I
can speak for the panel in saying that here there was complete agree-
ment. We would like abandoned cars out of sight. This left us
with some "minor" decisions. Who will do the job? And who will
pay for it?
I think I am speaking for the panel here, that we would have an
ideal solution to the problem if we could recycle the whole process,
from automobile manufacturer to its use, to its obsolescence to the
wrecker, to the scrap processor, to the steel mill, and then to the
automobile, again, obtaining a survival of the new car like a phoenix.
We would avoid government regulation and government subsidy,
if we somehow could get the market operation working, and we
would get rid of the problem of the abandoned cars in city streets and
of the graveyards and inventories. There was a great deal of inter-
est in the possibility for rather quick action here which would elim-
inate the problem.
I think that the panel we have here is conversant with this eco-
nomic cycling problem. It will shortly illuminate you on that,
and, on what seems to be a need for Federal action in order to expe-
dite the market process, on the need for State and local action, in
terms of a regulation and subsidy.
Mr. MARLEY. I agree with you that we don't particularly like
the title of this panel, because we like the word "scrap" rather
than "junk." Perhaps at the conclusion of this session all of you
who are here will realize the difference between junk and scrap.
The junk dealer is the man with a little truck it used to be a
AUTOMOBILE JUNKYARDS 405
wagon who picks up rags, bottles, and some metals, both ferrous
and nonf errous, and brings the metal portion of it to the scrap proces-
sor. The junk dealer has very little money, either in land or in equip-
ment. The auto wrecker is of two kinds, the licensed, legitimate auto
wrecker, who sells parts that are purchased by people who can do
their own repairs and the casual auto wrecker who has a yard where
one can go with his wrench and chisel and take his part. He is the
man that is causing a great deal of the problem for us today.
In an effort to reach a solution we in the iron and steel scrap
processing industry held our own national conference on auto salvage
here in Washington last year, to discuss what could be done about
the vast volume of old cars which faces us today, and the problems
of beautification which these bring in their train. We in the Insti-
tute are the scrap processors who chew up the old cars and get the
material back to the steel mills and the foundries, where it is re-
melted to make new steel.
We are disturbed at the spreading blight of auto graveyards and
the increasing abandonment of old cars on our streets and our high-
ways. We can see a good use for this scrap not only as businessmen
who process the raw material, but and I stress this as conserva-
tionists, who feel strongly that every effort should be made to use this
material. It represents iron ore, coal, and limestone wrested from
our dwindling natural resources. And it can be used in greater
quantities as scrap, if means are found to speed up the flow.
Our people every year handle some 35 to 40 million tons of proc-
essed steel and iron scrap for domestic and foreign use. We could
handle more. We want to handle more.
We feel the beautification of auto wrecking yards can be accom-
plished. For example, Federal and State highway departments
should immediately move to use funds through Federal road pro-
grams available for landscaping to purchase strips of land along the
roads to screen the yards or to make it possible to move graveyards
to other locations.
We believe it will help if the yard operators are given some in-
centive to do the job on their own and that they should be permitted
to move where this is necessary. Beautification and removal of old
cars to new locations, however, are of themselves not enough. As
a basic resource of this Nation, this material should be recycled to
steelmaking in greater quantity.
The suggestions I now offer relate to five areas affecting this prob-
lem. First, the need for increased steel mill consumption. Second,
406 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
the faster movement of old cars to scrap processors. I refer to my own
industry. Third, the need for research to promote use of automobile
scrap. Fourth, the provision of loan funds to speed installation
of modern equipment and adaption of new techniques; and, fifth,
the elimination of restrictive influences on the quick movement of old
cars to scrap yards and to the steel mills.
President Johnson in his message on natural beauty said, "Eco-
nomic incentives may be needed to bring a solution to the junk car
problem."
We agree. This is our suggestion for the steel industry. Use the
tax structure now existing. Give mills and foundries an opportunity
to write off a greater proportion of the cost of using automobile
scrap. For example, if a steel mill buys prepared auto scrap for $25
a ton, it could be allowed to write off as a cost of raw material the $25
plus another $5 or $ 1 0. This could be applied as a credit before taxes.
It would be granted only if auto scrap consumption at the mill ex-
ceeded that of the selected base year.
We have talked with Lukens Steel, one of the major steel com-
panies and, incidentally, an integrated mill, about this approach.
They told us unofficially, if such an incentive program was offered, it
would encourage them to consider how they could increase the use of
auto scrap.
Ugly, unlovely, old cars are a resource and should not be wasted.
No sound economy can be built, no nation can flourish if it wastes
its resources. The ultimate and real solution to this problem lies in
getting old cars back into the scrap cycle faster and in larger quanti-
ties than ever before.
Mr. OWENS. The eyesore problems connected with junk auto-
mobiles, in our opinion, have so many facets that no single approach
will provide the final solution. The search for the answer thus
requires the concerted efforts, not only of the auto wrecking industry,
but also government working with the groups involved.
It is on these joint efforts that I would particularly like to concen-
trate my remarks.
From a public policy standpoint, we start with the premise that the
conservation of natural resources is a desirable end. Economic
solutions are preferable to those which are wasteful or costly, even
though the latter may provide an easy, quick answer. The dumping
of cars into the ocean or the burying of compressed car scrap are
AUTOMOBILE JUNKYARDS 407
both wasteful and costly. The use of car bodies for land fill is
costly, though less wasteful.
The basic solution would appear to be one which can make use
of the automobiles as scrap in the production of iron and steel. Each
ton of scrap consumed conserves more than 3 tons of primary
materials.
As you know, a good many automobiles are already used as scrap,
in the form of so-called No. 2 bundles. These bundles have the
disadvantage of containing contaminants in the form of certain non-
ferrous metals which make them of only limited acceptability to
steelmaking. If the quality and price of automobile scrap can be
improved, we are on the way to solving the junk car problem.
New scrap processing methods give promise of providing a solution.
The strongest possibility seems to lie with shredding. In this type
of scrap, contaminants can be reduced to technically and econom-
ically feasible limits for steelmaking. Shredded scrap is used in a
number of electric furnaces. Today the extension of its use to other
types of steelmaking furnaces is evidently only a matter of economics,
time, and experience.
The government's most important role in working with industry
for solutions to the junk car problem would seem to be in fostering
the greater use of automobile scrap. How can this be accomplished?
There are a number of things government can do.
First, through low-interest loans or tax incentives, the govern-
ment could encourage the establishment of shredding plants and
other processing methods which will improve the quality of
automobile scrap.
Second, the government can encourage research, in economical
methods of using more scrap in basic oxygen furnaces, in new uses,
and in further improvement of the quality of automotive scrap.
Although shredding represents a vast improvement over No. 2 bun-
dles and is considered to be of high quality, it may not represent
the final answer to the processing of automotive scrap. The
Interior Department is already working in this area.
Third, the government can look into the matter of railroad
freight rates on scrap, to determine whether existing rates are a
deterrent to its economic use.
Fourth, the government can work with industry to promote exports
of auto scrap.
In the matter of auto abandonments, cooperative efforts between
the Federal Government and local, county, and State governments
408 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
can be directed towards the establishment of better titling laws
and identification procedures to reduce car abandonment and
toward the liberalization of statutes requiring local governments to
hold abandoned cars for lengthy periods. This will greatly reduce
delays in the movement of abandoned cars into the scrap cycle.
In any local or State government decision, care must be taken to
avoid actions which may later prove to be unsound. Such organiza-
tions as the Council of State Goverments and Mayors' Conference
can be helpful in this regard.
There are, undoubtedly, many other ways in which government
and industry can act cooperatively toward a solution of the junk
car problem. I know I speak for all parts of government when I
extend a sincere invitation to you to present your ideas on solutions
to this national problem.
Mr. MORRIS. When we consider the problem of junked and
abandoned cars, it is imperative that we define the various industries
which have been grouped under the junkyard category.
1. The junkyard is the place where items which have lost their
original usefulness are collected and stored for future sale as
secondary or waste material.
2. The scrapyard is where scrap materials are purchased for
processing and sold to the steel mills as an important ingredient in
the making of new steel.
3. The auto graveyard, properly defined, is where cars have been
abandoned and left to disintegrate, such as at gas stations, body
shops and garages, streets and highways, farms and open spaces.
4. The auto wrecking yard is where cars are purchased and dis-
mantled for the main purpose of salvaging good usable parts for
resale. It also provides the main source of supply for the automotive
parts rebuilders. The residue, those parts of the car for which there
is no further parts reclamation, is sold as scrap. The auto wrecker
is primarily in the retail business. Seventy-eight percent of the cars
in his yard are purchased for their parts value.
The National Auto and Truck Wreckers Association is quite
cognizant of the necessity of keeping America beautiful. Four years
ago, it inaugurated its own beautification program, encouraging its
members to improve the appearance of their places of business by
means of fences, planting of trees, painting buildings, etc. It has
been instrumental in setting up community programs in many cities
and towns.
AUTOMOBILE JUNKYARDS 409
The members of this association are very much aware of the prob-
lem of the junk and abandoned cars and want to do whatever they
can to help remedy this situation.
There are about 8,000 auto wreckers in the country who handle
6 million cars per year. The reason why so many of them do not
take in the obsolete and junk cars is because the cost of handling,
storing, and preparing them for sale to the scrap processor is too high
to make this practical. Also, these cars take up more space than the
auto wrecker has. The average size of the auto wrecking yard is
eight acres. In heavily populated areas it is about two. Where land
is plentiful and inexpensive it may reach 30 acres. His parts value or
later model cars occupy all the room he has.
The auto wrecker's yard can only hold so many cars, with the
result that the number of cars he purchases each year equals the
number he dismantles and sells to the scrap processor. On an aver-
age, a car remains in the auto wrecker's yard for a period of 12
months, ranging from a low of one day to a high of four years. The
average age of the car in the yard is 6.9 years.
In many areas, because of air pollution controls, the auto wrecker
is not allowed to burn the chassis, which is necessary to remove the
impurities, such as glass, rubber, upholstery, nonferrous materials,
etc., so that they will be acceptable to the scrap processor.
The distance from the scrap processor, which in some cases is as
much as 300 miles, makes the transportation of auto hulks financially
impossible.
Technological changes in the production of new steel have lessened
the demand for automotive scrap.
Many States require a great deal of red tape in order to clear the
title of the abandoned car and it costs the auto wrecker too much
in time and money to handle these. In the majority of cases, he must
hold them for a period of 90 days before he can dismantle them and
prepare them for the scrap processor. There are ten States which
do not have certificates of title, where there are 13J/2 million regis-
tered cars and trucks and where car abandonment is high.
The last owner of the vehicle is responsible for the abandoned car.
When he cannot get a price for his junked car, rather than give it
away he just abandons it.
I am not attempting to whitewash the auto-wrecking industry or
trying to create an image that is not real, but we must look at this
problem from a practical standpoint. We admit that the auto-
410 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
wrecking yard is not a thing of beauty but neither are so many other
vital industries. The auto wrecker serves an important role in the
economy and safety of his community as well as the country at large.
With 85 million cars registered in the United States today, and with
new car production reaching the 9 million mark, the auto wrecker is
still scrapping 6 million cars per year. As the population of the
country increases, so does the number of cars on the road. What
is more, of the 80 percent of the people who own cars, 22 percent
of these own two or more, and this trend is rapidly increasing.
On the economic side, the auto-wrecking industry is a home-owned
business. It employs thousands of workers who earn and spend their
salaries in their own communities. The auto wreckers serve a vital
need, not only in the community, but in the Nation as a whole, by
supplying used parts to motorists who either cannot afford new parts
or, in many cases, are unable to obtain them from the car manu-
facturer. Millions of dollars are reclaimed by insurance companies
who sell the "total loss" wrecked cars to the auto salvage dealers.
The scrap the auto wrecker produces goes into the making of new
steel and automotive scrap ranks second in supply of scrap metal for
new steel production.
The auto-wrecking industry's participation in keeping America
beautiful is twofold :
1 . To try to find solutions to the problem of the abandoned and
junked cars so that they will not be a blight to our country's natural
beauty.
2. To improve the appearance of their places of business in order
that they become more compatible with the surrounding areas.
To accomplish these goals, I would like to make the following
proposals :
1 . That the States modify their motor vehicle legislation to provide
a faster and less complicated method of clearing titles to cars which
have outlived their usefulness as operative motor vehicles.
2. To find new methods of disposing of automobile hulks faster
and more economically through the development of inexpensive car
flatteners, portable balers, and the like.
3. Further development of scrap-processing equipment which will
result in upgrading the quality of automotive scrap so that it will be
more acceptable to the steel mills and, as such, will be in greater
demand, thereby speeding up the flow of the automobile scrap back
to the mills for future production of new steel.
AUTOMOBILE JUNKYARDS 411
4. Closer accessibility to scrap-processing centers to speed up
the flow of auto-body hulks from the auto-wrecking yards which will
reduce the high cost of transportation.
5. Developing an educational program so that local authorities
as well as the general public will be aware of the fact that the auto-
wrecking industry is both an asset as well as a necessity in their local
communities that it is primarily in the business of dismantling
wrecked and older cars for the purpose of salvaging good usable
parts for resale and as such should be given the same consideration
as any other business which is licensed by its local community.
6. Awareness on the part of local authorities as to the high cost
and complexities of removing, storing, and dismantling of wrecked
or obsolete vehicles so that more realistic and practical zoning and
screening ordinances can be developed.
7. A continued effort by the auto- wrecking industry in coopera-
tion with local citizen groups in sponsoring cleanup and beautifica-
tion programs.
Making America beautiful is something every citizen wants. Con-
serving natural resources, keeping cars running through the use of
used parts, and insuring a steady flow of the scrap back to the steel
mills for future production, are all necessary functions of the auto-
wrecking industry and are essential to the economy of our country.
Let practicability rather than emotion be our guide in solving
this very important problem.
Mr. ABERNETHY. Although I speak as an individual and not as
an industry representative, I know from my conversations that the
people of the industry I am in applaud the President for the atten-
tion he has focused on the need for action to preserve America's
beauty. He has already turned an essential key.
In a number of areas we appear to have approached a point of
no return and in other areas we are late in concerted attacks on
problems made much more difficult by our accelerating growth.
The junked vehicle stands out because of visible accumulations, lack
of adequate shielding, delays in the disposal process and other
factors.
It stands out also by its contrast to the enormous contribution
the motor vehicle has made to our economy and, in fact, by the
accessibility it has given to the beauty we seek to preserve.
The junked vehicle is a blight on beauty in many localities, and it
tends to symbolize the vast problem of solid waste disposal by a
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412 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
great society. This entire problem needs attacking with a sense of
urgency.
We can be greatly encouraged by certain developments. Inno-
vation has speeded the process by which hulks are converted into
acceptable scrap and gains in this area have enormous promise
unrevealed only a short time ago.
Likewise, important strides have been made by private industry
in the improvement of wrecking operations, both aesthetically and
economically.
The movement of acceptable scrap is making great gains. Of
course, the ultimate answer in this area is economic. We can be
hopeful without basing conclusions today on predictions for
tomorrow.
Specifically, we can encourage Federal and local action that will
alleviate blights on beauty. The zoning regulations and proper
shielding can be very effective in this respect. (We should note
that in the long run, however, many screening efforts should not be
regarded as a final answer. Out of sight will not always be enough. )
We can improve our vehicle titling and disposal laws, as you have
heard others say. This process is not effective today in many parts
of the country, and barriers to the movement of the vehicle from
the final owner to proper disposition greatly inhibit the efficiency of
this process.
We can encourage private industry in its strong efforts to upgrade
the appearance and efficiency of wrecking operations, which are
very important economically, by appropriate regulations for
licensing.
We may increase the speed with which ingenuity is advancing the
reduction process by encouraging tax and perhaps other advantages
that will stimulate the use and development of more or better tools.
We should stimulate research into solid waste disposal and reuse
of resources, both on a private and governmental basis. All of those
most closely identified with the basic problem can be expected to
participate in its solution with more intensive inquiry and
inventiveness.
It is my feeling that this is a problem of national scope, affecting
everyone. Its answers are multiple, and not limited to any sector,
however important economically. No economic group can be given
unwarranted reward or burdened with unwarranted expense as
the problem is attacked.
AUTOMOBILE JUNKYARDS 413
It is being attacked, and it is evident that the attacks are gathering
speed, impelled by competitive effort and voluntary cooperation.
We should encourage the efforts that are gaining important head-
way, undertaking the specific steps that we know will be of benefit
and avoid major diversion toward unknown or questionable trials.
Movement is apparent and our primary need is to give it sus-
tained momentum with Federal and local attention, which, in
turn, will stimulate the efforts of all who are concerned with the
natural beauty of our Nation.
Mr. ZINNER. Although natural beauty is both the theme and
the ultimate goal of our conference, I think to attain our objective,
we must face and deal with cold and hard economic facts.
The forces that encourage the accumulation of automobiles, re-
frigerators, washing machines, and other mechanical devices that
have lost their original usefulness are primarily economic forces, as
other members of this panel have already stated.
Similarly, economic forces discourage prompt reconversion of this
growing mountain of obsolete material to some new and usable form.
Ideally, the normal cycle of junk disposal includes some salvaging
of resalable parts and utilization of the remainder by an established
scrap trade.
The ugliness and blight associated with the normal disposal cycle
arises mainly from the length of time required to complete it.
The auto-wrecking yards and the automobile graveyards in and
around our urban centers are only the most visible facets of an
involved industrial and essential service complex.
The abandoned hulks accumulating in rural areas and, too often,
even on city streets, rarely enter the disposal cycle directly because
there is little economic incentive to move them to central depots.
Projections of our population growth and our rapidly expanding
economy foretell that no simple scheme of fencing or planting can
long contain the growing volume of these discarded items.
Accordingly, it seems apparent that long-term solutions to the
automobile junk blight will be accomplished only when improved
or new use-patterns are developed that encourage and also hasten
the reuse of scrap.
At present, the rapidly changing technology of steelmaking has
dislocated established marketing patterns for this major class of
scrap.
414 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
Both industry and government are seeking ways to establish new
patterns and are exploring new measures to employ the scrap in
useful processes and products.
Towards this end the scrap industry is making progress in provid-
ing a dependable market for junked automobiles and for the stripped
chassis that is the end product of the parts-salvaging business.
The industry is also beginning to reestablish some markets for its
product by improving its processing and handling methods.
The government, through the Department of the Interior, has
initiated two intensive programs designed, first, to develop and dem-
onstrate new uses for auto scrap and, second, to disclose incentives
that can be effective in stimulating a more rapid movement of scrap
within the traditional marketing pattern.
Both efforts are now being substantially expanded.
President Johnson has strongly endorsed these departmental pro-
grams and has recommended to the Congress the appropriation of
additional funds to support them.
Under these programs, the department's Bureau of Mines already
has developed one process that promises a substantial new outlet for
automobile scrap in a system of concentrating and reducing low-
grade iron ores that so far have not been used commercially.
A single commercial-size plant, employing this process and de-
signed to produce 5 million tons of usable iron concentrate annually
would require, for example, more than 600,000 tons of scrap per
year.
All of this metal conserved would in this fashion be recovered,
together with the newly produced iron, and reenter the steelmaking
cycle at the initial stage.
We propose to perfect this process and urge its commercial
adoption.
The Department of the Interior, again through the Bureau of
Mines, also is getting ready to explore several entirely new ways for
effectively employing auto scrap.
One process, for example, involves the production of an extremely
pure oxide that can be used in preparing a premium product for
blast-furnace or other forms of consumption.
The volume of auto scrap marketable through this process would
be limited only by the range of economical transportation.
Another process scheduled for development work involves the
preparation of auto scrap for use in the recovery of copper metal
AUTOMOBILE JUNKYARDS 415
from low-grade ore and tailings, technically described as the cemen-
tation of copper from leach solutions.
In view of the growth of such copper leaching operations, it seems
possible that the entire supply of auto scrap within several hundred
miles of a leaching plant could be consumed in this type of
application.
In still another investigation, melted auto scrap would be treated
with selected additives to make it suitable for use in foundries.
Among the other investigations which we are contemplating, are
the feasibility of producing mild steel from scrap by electric f urnacing
practices, and research on chemical processes by which impurities
might be economically removed from auto scrap, thus suiting it for
still other uses.
The results of this work will, of course, be made immediately
available to the steel industry and the scrap producers.
Secretary of the Interior Udall has directed the scientific and
technical personnel of the department to cooperate fully with those
industries in the application of new processes or the improvement of
traditional practices that promise any improvement in the scrap use
cycle.
However, a substantial improvement in the scrap use cycle will not,
in itself, eliminate all unsightly aspects of the junk disposal sequence.
As shown by the excellent studies completed by such groups as the
Institute of Scrap Iron and Steel, a variety of incentives has been
suggested that might more effectively accommodate automobile dis-
posal processes to our environment.
Moreover, it would be naive to assume that changes in technology
will not create even greater and certainly different disposal problems
in the future.
During the next few months we propose to look into the incentives
that might prove most effective, in the long-term, in minimizing the
blight, while insuring an effective disposal process.
This will be done in close cooperation with the other agencies of
the government and with the appropriate scrap, steel and transpor-
tation industries.
We intend also to strengthen our efforts to relate immediate or
foreseeable changes in the nature of available scrap, and in scrap-
consuming practices, to the ultimate disposal processes.
In conclusion, we believe it must be recognized that, while the
Federal Government has an obligation to assume leadership in seek-
416 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
ing solutions to a problem that is nationwide, there are responsibilities
also at other levels of government.
The automobile junk problem must also be attacked at the com-
munity level, and we will doubtless hear of such actions from some
of our other panel members.
Mr. HAAR. In a letter written by Mr. Justice Holmes to Byron
Pollock, he once said, "Two philosophers can tell each other all they
know in half an hour." You have heard from a panel of five philos-
ophers in only a little more time than that.
I wonder if at this time I could summarize very quickly what
seemed to emerge as the concensus of the recommendations that this
panel would like to make. They don't bind anyone individually,
and some of them were supported more strongly than others.
Our panel said, first, that private industry should be given added
impetus through tax credit and other subventions, to invest in new
equipment and technology, such as the new shredders and flatteners.
To be more specific, it suggested that the Small Business Administra-
tion should authorize and set aside a special fund allowance of $25
million in order to help finance the purchase of equipment or
screening.
Our second recommendation went to the ICG in terms of their
adjusting their rates for the transportation of automobile scrap to
remove inequities, if any.
Third, we recommended the development of a series of model
laws which should be developed, a special certificate of title laws
to shorten the time needed for investigating titles to abandoned
vehicles within a shorter period of time than is now possible.
Fourth, we recommended a variety of State grants-in-aid pro-
grams from the Federal Government in order first to acquire and set
aside depots for the concentration and storage of processed hulks;
second, to assist in financing screening and other aesthetic devices;
and third, as part of the general solid waste disposal program now
being carried on, which would assist in the pickup and disposal of
abandoned automobiles.
Next we thought the Federal Government had a special area of
concern, where direct and indirect Federal expenditures were
involved.
One of these was the unscreened wrecking yards along the limited
access interstate highway system, and the ABC system. Second was
the policing of approaches to national parks and monuments to
AUTOMOBILE JUNKYARDS 417
provide for the screening or removal of any wrecking yards in those
areas. And finally, as part of the general effort launched by Mrs.
Johnson in beautifying Washington, B.C., we believed that the
wrecking yards in this area should be made compatible with the
neighboring land uses.
Our next recommendation and you notice how free and easy
we are in advising people was that the State and local governments
should undertake effective land use planning for the auto-dismantling
industry, making available model laws and case studies of success-
ful operations. Planning and zoning for appropriate location of the
yards indicate that a law for licensing of auto wreckers would be
useful in some instances.
We suggested that it would be appropriate to reexamine the State
personal property tax on the scrap market value of hulk held in
inventory to encourage their sale or movement.
We believed a pilot program would be worthwhile in trans-
ferrable disposal certificates attached to the title, and refundable
when the car is disposed of.
Next, as an analogy of Public Law 480, we thought a pilot pro-
gram for cars for peace, the export of cars that are still operable to
areas where labor costs were low, should be inaugurated.
Next point, we thought Federal grants should be made available
to civic groups and industry associations for the purpose of a cleanup
and national tree-planting campaign. And finally, that the Federal
Government should encourage and cooperate in an expanded pro-
gram of government-industry research, which has had such high
payoff in seeking new uses and improvements in current uses for auto-
mobile scrap.
I think you can see that in this broad and specific program all
components of industry were called on to undertake certain costs
for the general benefit of us all.
Questions and Discussion
Mr. HAAR. I wonder if I could start our question period with one
general question. One item that we discussed at great length was
whether the automobile junkyard and the abandoned car are an
external cost of the industry, and whether the automobile user and
manufacturer should not therefore be looked upon as the proper
source for bearing some of the necessary subventions and subsidies.
418 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
We are dealing with the obsolete car. Cars, like all of us, will come
to the end of the road and this is a proper cost that should be borne
by the user. This question, indeed, is prompted by the present action
of the Congress with respect to the excise tax. Should not some
portion or a new tax be segregated for the strictly limited purposes
of dealing with automobile junkyards?
Mr. ABERNETHY. Of course, we believe that the excise tax is not
a user's tax. The only other comment I could make is that the users,
as you well know, are paying well above their share in one way or
another for highway improvement. We feel that the excise tax was
discriminatory and the plan that came out of the committee just
recently for the elimination of it is in the right direction.
The user is paying a lot to use the roads and highways. The
figure given is $2 billion more than the normal amount expected.
HARRY E. INGWERSEN. I would like to speak not so much of what
might be done, but of our own experience with what has been done.
I would like to say, first, my remarks are directed or perhaps influ-
enced by an exhaustive study of a report prepared by Mr. Owens
and other members of his group, who should be very much congrat-
ulated. We feel, as has been said, that scrap or junk automobiles
rightfully used are a national resource. If properly processed, they
can well return to the furnaces of our steel mills and foundries.
At the present time, I understand there are two methods or
machines that do this. One of them has been installed adjacent to
our plants in Kansas City, Mo., and Houston, Tex. The scrap
has been found to be excellent. In Kansas City, we have nothing
but electric furnaces. In Houston, we have both electric and open
hearth.
From that experience, we believe scrap so processed can be used in
either type. One drawback is perhaps the cost. It represents a
major capital investment, but I believe there are methods now, some
perhaps even in use, that put the same type of process within the
reach of the smaller scrap processor throughout the country. We
feel that, if this can be developed, a great step will have been taken
in eliminating and putting scrapped automobiles into normal com-
mercial, industrial channels again.
RAYMOND JONES. I represent 546 of the 1,600 salvage units in
the State of Texas. We are citizens engaged in a business that is
neither dishonest nor degrading. We are not the culprits who have
AUTOMOBILE JUNKYARDS 419
made off with all the beauty in this great United States. We are
merely the end of a line of some six million automobiles, that will
come off the highways this year. I would be the first to admit that
there are those in my industry who make little or no effort to beautify
their salvage yards, but certainly there are other businesses just as
unsightly. A large number of these dealers are in the parts salvage
business, paying from $ 1 00 to $ 1 ,000 for late-model wrecked auto-
mobiles for salvage. This is our stock, just as the department store
stocks clothes. We have little or no interest in obsolete automobiles.
MICHAEL R. FAGAN. I have heard discussions on both taxation
and State regulation. There are a couple of observations that I
would like to make.
The easiest, I guess, would be on regulation. I think there is a
crying need for coordination and revaluation of overlapping State
regulation, and I think your committee should come out with a reso-
lution to investigate and iron out these differences. As an example,
in the State of California it is possible for an applicant to secure a
license which directly violates the local law, zoning.
As an example, a downtown department store can meet all the
criteria for the issuance of an auto-wrecking license as a normal func-
tion carried on in the basement bargain center, while the very location
of the department store is in a commercial zone. This, of course, is
an easy example, but there are other more technical examples.
In the area of taxation, I have met with the Inland Auto Wreckers
Association, who operate in our particular area, and they have
pointed out that there is apparently a trend of change in the type of
auto wrecking activity normally associated adjacent to urban areas
where the dismantling and holding of the vehicles is eliminating itself
from the scene because of the high rate of taxation.
There has been indication that these businesses will seek reevalua-
tion under taxation as a commercial use, because of the percentage
of their businesses being used for retail outlets. Heretofore, we have
always considered auto wrecking as an industrial use and conse-
quently have taxed them on that basis.
The third and final point is what happened to the auto wrecking
yard along the main street of a town, where the interstate freeway
has bypassed this small community, where zoning cannot be applied
retroactively.
The Federal Government may have to encourage and put money
in the local communities to provide for the relocation of the facility
420 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY
and improved standards, and I think this conference should come up
with a series of recommendations that support that thinking.
Mrs. CYRIL Fox. I have been in touch with Mr. Wolfson. I have
a file of very fine material that resulted from your c